i'tiuning  anb  .Jabot. 

LIBRARY 


Universityof  Illinois 


'I'he  building  here  shown  as  No.  2  Hanover 
Street  was  with  others  demolished  in  1865, 
and  the  site  is  now  occupied  by  a  part  of  the 
Hankino-  House  of  Messrs.  Brown  Bros.  c%  Co. 


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THE  LAKK.   FRONT  IN 


Showing  also  the  original  Illinois  Central  Ter- 
minal Station  at  Chicago,  as  seen  from  corner 
of  Michigan  Avenue  and  Madison  Street. 


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TIME  TABI,E!N 


U'.I.K  No.  6,  FOURTH   DIVISION 

\li     *ii  •«* 


C     J  w 

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1  5   d 


The  time  table  here  shown  took  effect  Sunday 
noon,  September  23,  1855,  and  relates  to  move- 
ment of  all  trains  between  Amboy  and  Dunleith 
(now  East  Dubuque). 


vioiaiviCI  HTHUOI  ,d  .oM  a.iaAT  3MiT 


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-ovom  ol  aaJsIai  bns  ,gg3i  ,f_s  ladmalqaS  ,noon 
fariB  ijodrnA  naawlad  anisil  HB  lo  Jnam 


S-4  "W  f   "   S  3  ^  2!  «   W 

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This  pass  was  issued  in  1857  to  the  Hon.  Abraham 
Lincoln,  at  that  time  Attorney  for  the  Company, 
and  afterward  President  of  the  United  States. 
The  circles  and  stars  indicate  conductors'  punch 
marks  in  original  pass  on  each  presentation  of  same. 


MA    1O 


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rlJ  10^  x911"10-1^^  om'-  ir'^  is  .nlooniJ 
baJrnU  aril   to  Jnabi^ai'I   biBv/iaJlu    bne 
rtoriuq  'aioJoubnoo  slBoibni  aisia  bne  aatoiia  9fiT 


te  (StortwU  gall  g 


IN    response    to   aii    invitation   extended    by    the   Illinois 
Central  Railroad   Company,  there   assembled    in   the 
parlors  of  the  Auditorium  Hotel,  Chicago,  on  Satur- 
day evening,  February  the  ninth,  nineteen   hundred   and  one, 
prominent  men  from  all  portions  of  the  United  States.     Com- 
merce,  Theology,    Law,    Science,    Education,    Transportation, 
Politics,  Medicine,  Manufacture — all  walks  of  life  were  repre- 
sented.    The  occasion  was  the  Dinner  given  to  the  Directors 
and  Officers  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  on  the 
Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  the  Incorporation  of  the  Company. 

After  a  half  hour  of  greeting  and  social  intercourse,  the 
guests  were  escorted  to  the  Banquet  Room,  which  was  mag- 
nificently decorated  with  rare  plants  and  flowers  in  great 
profusion.  A  carefully  selected  orchestra  rendered  appropriate 
music. 

The  guests  were  assigned  to  seats  at  twenty-two  tables, 
the  arrangement  of  which,  together  with  the  names  of  the 
gentlemen  who  presided  at  each  and  assisted  the  host  of  the 
evening,  may  be  observed  from  the  following  diagram  : 


BALCONY     FOR     MUSIC. 


MR.  W.    K.  ACKERMAN. 


REVO.  DR.  STIRE8. 


EX.  GOV.  HAMILTON 


Ex.  Gov.  ALTQELO. 


Anteroom. 


Entrance. 


Anteroom. 


The  following   is   a    complete   list    of  the   guests  present: 


Speaker's  Gable 

Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish 
Mr.  W.  K.  Ackerman 
Hon.  John  P.  Altgeld 
Hon.  John  M.  Hamilton 
Rev.  E.  M.  Stires 


Table  No.  One 

A.  W.  Sullivan 
James  W.  Conchar 
William  G.  Dows 
F.  B.  Harriman 
O.  O.  Tolerton 
W.  H.  Torbert 
M.  M.  Walker 
John  R.  Webster 


Table  No.  Gtoo 

T.  J.  Hudson 
C.  S.  Clarke 
J.  F.  Buncombe 
C.  F.  Krebs 
F.  W.  Lane 
R.  B.  Starbuck 
G.  M.  Dugan 


Table  No.  Ghree 

B.  F.  Ayer 
James  Fentress 
J.  N.  Jewett 
W.  K.  Murphy 
C.  Menelas 
Dr.  J.  E.  Owens 
W.  R.  Ward 
Geo.  W.  Wall 


Table  No.  Four 

J.  C.  Welling 
Chas.  Counselman 
R.  S.  Charles 
Marvin  Hughitt 
W.  H.  McDoel 
W.  G.  Purdy 
J.  A.  Spoor 
B.  L.  Winchell 


Table  No.  Five 

J.  T.  Harahan 
Charles  T.  Ballard 
H.  G.  Burt 
M.  J.  Carpenter 
Charles  M.  Heald 
W.  B.  Mallory 
W.  G.  Sykes 
B.  Thomas 


Table  No.  Six 

J.  M.  Dickinson 
Augustus  N.  Eddy 
C.  E.  Harrington 
H.  H.  Kohlsaat 
Geo.  R.  Peck 
Willard  A.  Smith 
J.  M.  Whitman 
Otto  Young 


Table  No.  SeVen 

Jerome  Hill 
Edward  Abend 
John  S.  Aisthorpe 
P.  T.  Chapman 
C.  B.  Cole 
L.  Foote 
R.  Iv.  Saunders 
F.M.Youngblood 


Table  No.  Eight 

J.  F.  Wallace 
C.  A.  Beck 
L.  Fargo 
R.  W.  Millsaps 
Edward  Marrener 
W.  A.  Rankin 
Wm.  Renshaw 


Table  No.  Nine 

L/.  P.  Morehouse 
C.  H.  Comstock 
C.  N.  Gilmore 
W.  R.  Head 
W.  P.  Johnson 
T.  W.  Place 
L.  T.  Moore 
F.  Fairman 


Table  No.  Gen 

E.  H.  Harriman 
Robt.  C.  dowry 
S.  M.  Felton 
J.  J.  Mitchell 
Wm.  Perm  Nixon 
John  R.  Walsh 


Table  No.  Eleven 

John  W.  Doane 
E.  E.  Ayer 
J.  C.  Brown 
John  J.  Janes 
R.  T.  Lincoln 
Franklin  MacVeagh 
James  S.  Pirtle 
A.  A.  Sprague 


Table  No.  EWelVe 

C.  A.  Peabody 
Charles  M.  Beach 
John  A.  Dillon 
James  M.  Edwards 
Charles  Henrotin 
Henry  W.  Leman 
John  B.  Lord 
M.  R.  Spellman 


Table  No.  thirteen 

James  D.  W.  Cutting 
Watson  F.  Blair 
W.  M.  Grinnell 
C.  D.  Hamill 
Le  Roy  Percy 
Thatcher  N.  Brown 
S.  B.  Raymond 
J.  Henry  Norton 


Table  No.  Fourteen 

W.  G.  Bruen 
John  W.  Carlin 
J.  W.  Higgins 
C.  F.  Parker 
D.  W.  Ross 
E.  P.  Skene 
E.  F.  Trabue 
J.  F.  Titus 


Table  No.  Fifteen 

A.  H.  Hanson 
F.  H.  Harwood 
S.  G.  Hatch 
Wm.  A.  Kellond 
C.  A.  Kniskern 
J.  F.  Merry 
J.  A.  Osborn 
George  C.  Power 


Table  No.  Sixteen 

M.  C.  Markham 
George  W.  Becker 
F.  B.  Bowes 
W.  D.  Hurlbut 
W.  E.  Keepers 
R.  Kirkland 
W.  M.  Rhett 
W.  H.  V.  Rosing 


Table  No.  Seventeen 

David  Sloan 
O.  M.  Dunn 
W.  J.  Gillingham,  Jr. 
L.  L-  Losey 
H.  W.  Parkhurst 
W.  L.  Tarbet 
H.  U.  Wallace 


Table  No.  Eighteen 

S.  F.  Andrews 
Dr.  W.  H.  Allport 
C.  C.  Cameron 
John  G.  Drennan 
Hunter  C.  Leake 
Blewett  Lee 
J.  R.  Peachy 
B.  J.  Stevens 


Table  No.  Nineteen 

D.  S.  Bailey 
Horace  Baker 
J.  C.  Dailey 
A.  J.  Greif 
J.  B.  Kemp 
H.  McCourt 


Table  No.  Twenty 

M.  D.  Royer 
C.  H.  Allison 
W.  A.  Eldredge 
J.  G.  Pratt 
W.  S.  Pinney 
W.  E.  Ruttan 


Table  No.  Twenty-one 

L.  A.  Harkness 
J.  E.  Buker 
Murray  J.  Brady 
S.  Kennedy 
J.  K.  Lauder 


The  Diviue  blessing  was  invoked  by  Reverend  Ernest  M.  Stires,  the  Rector 
of  Grace  Church,  Chicago,  in  the  following  words : 

"  Almighty  God,  give  us  grateful  hearts  for  these  and  for  all  Thy  blessings, 
through  Christ,  our  Lord.  Amen." 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  dinner,  Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  the  President  of  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  said : 

Gentlemen :  Appreciating  that  every  one  else  has,  as  I  have,  a  neatly  type- 
written impromptu  speech  in  his  pocket,  I  will  endeavor  to  be  brief.  The 
Company  is  now  operating  railroads  in  thirteen  States.  Knowing  that  no  kind 
of  property  is  equally  subject  to  depredation  or  more  in  need  of  constant  pro- 
tection from  the  constituted  authorities  than  is  that  of  the  railways,  we  have 
not  failed  to  invite  the  Governors  of  each  of  those  thirteen  States  to  be  with 
us  this  evening. 

Unfortunately,  this  happens  to  be  a  busy  season  with  them  and  none  are 
present,  although  up  to  the  last  moment  we  had  expected  to  have  at  least  one 
of  them,  my  friend,  the  Honorable  Leslie  M.  Shaw,  Governor  of  Iowa,  with  us. 


The  following  letters  and  telegrams  were  then  read : 


STATE  OF  ILLINOIS,  EXECUTIVE  OFFICE, 

SPRINGFIELD,  January  29,  1901. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Fish. 

I  regret  exceedingly  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  accept  your  invitation 
for  dinner,  at  seven  o'clock  Saturday  evening,  February  the  ninth. 
A  previous  engagement  only  prevents  me  from  being  with  you. 

Very  truly  yours, 

(Sd.)     RICHARD  YATES. 
Hon.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  No.  i  Park  Row,  Chicago,  111. 

STATE  OF  MINNESOTA,  EXECUTIVE  DEPARTMENT, 

ST.  PAUL,  January  31,  1901. 
Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  Chicago,  III. 

DEAR  SIR — Your  kind  invitation  to  be  present  at  the  Auditorium  Hotel  in 
Chicago,  to  meet  the  directors  and  officials  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railway  on  the 
Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  its  incorporation,  received.  I  would  be  greatly  pleased 


to  be  with  you  upon  that  occasion,  and  surely  will  if  my  official  duties  will 
permit.  I  fear,  however,  that  I  may  not  be  able  to  attend,  but  I  will  express 
the  wish  that  your  splendid  road  may  prosper  in  the  future  as  it  has  in  the 
past,  and  that  the  coming  fifty  years  may  even  surpass  the  period  just  closed. 

Please   present   my  greetings   to   President   Hughitt;   I  knew  him  in  Rock 
Island  when  a  boy,  but  do  not  know  as  he  will  remember  me. 

Wishing  you  and  your  road  the  splendid  success  that  it  deserves,  I  remain, 

Yours  sincerely, 

(Sd.)     I.  R.  VAN  SANT. 


EXECUTIVE  CHAMBER,  SOUTH  DAKOTA, 

PlERRE,  February  4,  1901. 

Governor  Herreid  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr.  Fish  and  acknowledges 
his  invitation  to  attend  dinner  on  Saturday  evening,  February  ninth,  nineteen 
hundred  and  one,  at  the  Auditorium  Hotel,  in  Chicago,  to  meet  the  directors 
and  officers  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railway  Company  on  the  Fiftieth  Anniver- 
sary of  the  incorporation  of  the  Company,  and  regrets  his  inability  to  accept  on 
account  of  important  official  duties. 

To  Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  i  Park  Row,  Chicago,  111. 


EXECUTIVE  CHAMBER,  STATE  OF  NEBRASKA, 

LINCOLN,  February  i,  1901. 
Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  No.  i  Park  Row,  Chicago,  III. 

MY  DEAR  SIR — The  Governor  directs  me  to  acknowledge  receipt  of  your 
invitation  to  meet  the  directors  and  officers  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railway  Com- 
pany, at  the  Auditorium  Hotel  in  Chicago,  on  Saturday  evening,  February  gth, 
and  to  say  that  the  pressure  of  official  business  occasioned  by  the  present  session 
of  the  Legislature  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to  accept  the  same. 

Very  respectfully, 

(Sd.)     H.  C.  LINDSAY, 

Secretary  to  the  Governor. 


EXECUTIVE  DEPARTMENT,  INDIANAPOLIS,  IND. 
PRIVATE  SECRETARY'S  ROOM. 

February  i,  1901. 

DEAR  SIR — Governor  Durbin  presents  his  compliments,  and  directs  me  to 
express  his  sincere  regret  that,  owing  to  pressing  official  duties  incident  to  the 
biennial  session  of  the  Indiana  General  Assembly,  he  is  compelled  to  deny 
himself  the  pleasure  of  accepting  the  courteous  invitation  to  attend  the  dinner 
to  the  directors  and  officers  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  at  the 


Auditorium  Hotel  in  Chicago,  on  Saturday  evening,  February  9th ;  otherwise  he 
would  gladly  avail  himself  of  the  generous  favor  you  have  so  graciously  extended. 

Very  truly, 

(Sd.)     CHAS.  E.  WILSON, 

Secretary  to  the  Governor. 
Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  President  Illinois  Central  R.  R.,  Chicago,  111. 


TELEGRAM. 

JEFFERSON  CITY,  Mo.,  February  5,  1901. 
Stuyvesant  Fish,  Esq. 

Regret  that  it  is  impossible  to  accept  your  invitation. 

(Sd.)     A.  M.  DOCKERY, 

Governor  of  Missouri. 


STATE  OF  KENTUCKY,  EXECUTIVE  DEPARTMENT, 

FRANKFORT,  February  2,  1901. 
Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  President  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Co.,  Chicago,  III. 

DEAR  SIR — I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  your  kind  invitation  to  be 
present  at  a  dinner  to  be  given  by  you  on  February  gth,  and  I  wish  to  express 
to  you  my  grateful  appreciation  of  it.  It  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to 
attend,  but  owing  to  my  duties  here  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  do  so. 

Thanking  you  again,  and  with  best  wishes  for  your  health  and  happiness, 
I  am,  Very  truly  yours, 

(Sd.)    J.  C.  W.  BECKHAM. 

TELEGRAM. 

NASHVILLE,  TENN.,  February  5,  1901. 
Hon.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  Chicago. 

I  regret  that  official  duties  here  in  connection  with  the  Legislature  prevent 
my  attendance  at  dinner  on  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  I.  C.,  ninth  inst.,  otherwise 
would  gladly  attend.  (Sd.)  BENTON  McMiLLiN, 

Governor  of  Tennessee. 


TELEGRAM. 

MADISON,  Wis.,  February  5,  1901. 
Stuyvesant  Fish,  President. 

Much  regret  that  urgent  official  work  incident  to  new  administration  and 
legislative  session  compels  me  to  decline  your  kind  invitation  to  Anniversary 
Dinner  given  on  occasion  of  semi-centennial  year  of  your  Company's  existence. 

(Sd.)    ROBERT  M.  LAFOLLETT, 

Governor  of  Wisconsin. 


EXECUTIVE  DEPARTMENT,  STATE  OF  MISSISSIPPI, 

JACKSON,  February  4,  1901. 

MY  DEAR  SIR — I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  receipt  of  your  invitation 
to  dinner  at  the  Auditorium  Hotel,  Chicago,  on  the  gth  inst.,  in  honor  of  the 
Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  the  great  I.  C.  R.  R. 

It  is  a  source  of  genuine  regret  to  me  that  imperative  duties  here  forbid  my 
absence  from  the  State  at  that  time,  for  I  assure  you  it  would  give  me  great 
pleasure  to  meet  in  social  intercourse  the  officers  and  directors  of  the  Railroad 
Company  that  has  done  so  much  for  the  development  and  progress,  not  alone  of 
the  South,  but  of  the  whole  country. 

Permit  me  to  express  through  you  to  the  directors  the  hope  that  the  road 
will  continue  to  prosper  and  grow  in  usefulness  as  the  years  go  by,  and  that 
both  it  and  its  patrons  will  always  bear  in  mind  their  mutual  rights,  interests 
and  dependencies  for  the  common  good  of  both. 

With  assurances  of  best  wishes  for  yourself  and  associates,  I  have  the  honor 
to  be  Very  respectfully, 

(Sd.)    A.  H.  LONGING. 

Hon.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  Chicago,  111. 

TELEGRAM. 

MONTGOMERY,  ALA.,  February  5,  1901. 
Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish. 

I  regret  exceedingly  that  on  account  of  Legislature  now  in  session,  impossible 
to  accept  your  kind  invitation  to  Anniversary  Dinner  on  ninth. 

(Sd.)    WILLIAM  J.  SANFORD, 

Governor  of  Alabama. 

TELEGRAM. 

RUSTON,  LA.,  February  5,  1901. 
Mr.  Stuyvesant  Fish,  President. 

I  regret  that  business  engagements  will  prevent  my  attendance  at  the  dinner. 

(Sd.)    W.  W.  HEARD, 
Governor  of  Louisiana. 

We  are,  however,  favored  with  the  presence  of  two  of  the  former  Governors 
of  Illinois,  who  are  seated  at  my  right,  the  Hon.  John  M.  Hamilton  and  the 
Hon.  John  P.  Altgeld,  whom  we  are  glad  to  welcome  as  having  been,  during 
their  respective  terms,  ex-officio  members  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Rail- 
road Company. 

Among  the  many  other  communications  received,  I  will  trouble  you  with  but 
two,  coming  as  they  do  from  the  Patriarch  of  American  Railroad  Companies,  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio,  and  from  the  Nestor  of  writers  on  railways,  Mr.  Henry  V. 
Poor. 


Mr.  Cowen  telegraphs : 

BALTIMORE,  MD.,  February  9,  1901. 
Siuyvesant  Fish,  Chicago,  III. 

The  oldest  of  American  railroads  sends  greeting  and  congratulation  to  the 
Illinois  Central  Railway  Company  upon  its  Fiftieth  Anniversary. 

The  railroad  advance  and  achievement  of  the  past  half  century  are  almost 
beyond  the  power  of  words  to  describe,  and  in  that  advance  and  achievement  no 
more  solid  and  enduring  results  have  been  attained  than  those  secured  by  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad. 

We  here  take  a  pardonable  pride  in  the  success  of  the  Company  over  which 
you  so  ably  preside,  because  we  cannot  forget  that  several  of  the  worthy  men 
who  in  early  days  laid  deep  the  foundations  for  that  success  came  from  the 
service  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad.  The  brilliant  results  of  your  own 
administration  of  the  great  property  secured  by  wise  and  far-sighted  manage- 
ment are  seen  not  only  in  the  financial  gain  to  your  corporation  but  in  the 
enormous  service  rendered  to  the  community,  which  are  fortunate  in  being  served 
by  such  a  progressive  railroad  system. 

To  you,  your  Directors  and  Officers,  on  this  your  Semi-Centennial ,  I  send 
Good  Cheer  and  God  Bless  You. 

JOHN  K.  COWEN, 
Prest.  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad  Co. 


Mr.  Poor's  letter  begins  as  follows : 

BROOKLINE,  MASS.,  February  7,  1901. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  FISH — Nothing  could  give  me  greater  satisfaction  than  to  be 
present  at  Chicago  on  "  the  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  the  incorporation  of  the  Illi- 
nois Central  Railroad,"  the  life  of  which  covers  a  period  in  which  a  single  agency, 
the  railway,  has,  as  it  were,  created  a  new  world.  For  my  absence  I  must  plead 
age,  and  the  season  in  which  one  should  not  venture  far  from  his  fireside.  I  will, 
however,  be  present  on  paper,  giving  a  brief  sketch  of  the  progress  of  this  great 
agency,  the  Central  being  a  striking  example,  and  of  the  mighty  wonders  it  has 
achieved. 

I  regret  that  on  account  of  the  length  of  the  paper  prepared  by  Mr.  Poor,  it 
is  impossible  to  read  it  this  evening.  It  contains  a  great  deal  of  interesting  and 
useful  information,  and  it  is  my  intention  to  print  it  and  furnish  a  copy  to  any 
guest  here  this  evening  who  may  indicate  his  desire  to  have  one. 

flSl)  I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to  make  to  you  this  evening  a  fitting  address, 
suited  to  this  occasion.  Unfortunately,  I  lack  the  necessary  gifts.  With  the 
aid  of  stenographers  and  typewriters,  I  have  been  able  to  write  something 
which,  craving  your  patience,  I  will  now  read : 


Fifty  years  have  passed  since  the  Act  to  Incorporate  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad  Company  was  approved  by  Governor  French,  on  the  tenth  of  February, 
1851.  No  Act  of  the  Legislature  of  this  State  has  proved  so  fruitful  for  good 
alike  to  the  United  States,  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  the  City  of  Chicago. 

To  the  United  States,  in  opening  the  then  inaccessible  interior  of  this  State 
to  settlement,  in  providing  a  ready  market  for  the  public  lands  at  double  the 
price  at  which  they  had  been  publicly  offered  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and 
in  furnishing,  ten  years  later,  the  means  for  moving  the  western  armies  to  the 
front,  and  supplying  them,  during  the  Civil  War. 

To  the  State  of  Illinois,  in  realizing  the  long-cherished  dream  of  a  central 
railroad,  for  which  the  State  had,  years  before,  in  vain  bankrupted  itself;  in 
providing  the  means  with  which  the  defaulted  debt,  of  some  $16,000,000,  which 
oppressed  her  people  in  1851,  was  finally  and  honorably  discharged  with  interest ; 
in  making  possible  the  cultivation  of  the  Grand  Prairie,  and,  in  that  way, 
enabling  the  State  to  take  the  high  position  in  the  national  galaxy  which  it 
now  holds. 

To  Chicago,  in  stopping  the  encroachments  of  Lake  Michigan,  which,  in  the 
sixteen  years  from  1836  to  1852,  had  eaten  into  the  heart  of  the  city  to  a  depth 
of  some  six  hundred  feet,  until  Michigan  Avenue  was  fairly  awash. 

Upon  the  dikes,  piers  and  breakwaters  with  which  the  Railroad  Company 
has  for  fifty  years  protected  the  City  against  the  encroachments  of  Lake  Michigan, 
the  Company  has  spent  from  first  to  last  $3,326,000.  The  fact  that  the  total 
tax  levied  by  the  City  of  Chicago  in  the  year  1851  was  only  $63,385,  proves 
how  incapable  it  then  was  of  undertaking  so  gigantic  a  task. 

To  the  City,  also,  in  making  tributary  to  its  commerce  the  prairies  of  this 
State  and  the  fertile  lands  of  the  lower  Mississippi  Valley ;  in  giving  it  an 
outlet  by  rail  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  in  making  possible  the  success  of  the 
World's  Fair  in  1893,  by  furnishing  a  transportation  then  undreamt  of  and 
since  elsewhere  unequaled. 

Without  insisting  that  the  railroad  was  the  sole  cause  of  all  this,  it  is  beyond 
cavil  that  it  was,  in  each  case,  the  proximate  and  efficient  cause. 

The  Government  lands  might  have  been  sold,  but  not  at  such  prices,  or  so 
soon.  The  Civil  War  would  have  been  carried  to  a  successful  issue,  but  not  as 
and  when  it  was.  The  State  would,  before  this,  have  had  a  central  railroad,  but 
not  the  one  it  has,  nor  would  the  State  debt  have  been  paid  thereby,  if  at  all. 
The  City's  water  front  would  have  had  a  vastly  different  contour,  and  the  trade 
of  the  central  part  of  this  State,  and  of  those  south  of  it,  would  have  been  con- 
trolled by  the  railroads  leading  directly  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and  by  the 
cities  of  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  Pittsburgh  and  Charleston,  each  of 
which,  in  1850,  largely  exceeded  Chicago  in  wealth  and  population. 


The  presence  here  to-night  of  so  many  of  our  officers  to  whom,  and  to  the 
men  under  them,  the  success  of  the  transportation  to  the  World's  Fair  was  due, 
and  the  recent  date  of  that  success,  preclude  me  from  exploiting  that  subject. 

The  grant  by  Congress,  through  the  Act  of  September  20,  1850,  to  the  States 
of  Illinois,  Mississippi  and  Alabama,  of  the  alternate  even-numbered  sections  of 
lands  for  the  sole  purpose  of  aiding  in  making  a  "National  Highway"  from  the 
upper  Mississippi  at  Dubuque,  and  the  lakes  at  Chicago,  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
although  opposed  and  criticised  at  that  time,  is  now,  by  all,  recognized  as  a 
measure  of  wise  statesmanship.  That  Act  provided  that  the  alternate,  odd- 
numbered  sections  which  were  reserved  to  the  Federal  Government,  should  not 
be  sold  at  less  than  double  the  price  at  which  they  had,  for  years,  been  on  the 
market.  Unfortunately,  similar  provisions  were  not  made  in  all  subsequent  land 
grants  in  aid  of  railroads. 

Far  from  being  a  gift,  or  gratuity,  by  the  Federal  Government  to  those  States, 
the  grant  proved  the  means,  and  the  only  possible  means,  of  getting  for  those 
lands  a  money  value,  the  reserved  sections  and  other  adjacent  lands  being 
speedily  sold  at  advancing  prices.  Moreover,  the  Act  of  1850  secured  to  the 
United  States,  for  all  time,  concessions  in  respect  to  freights  and  fares  over  the 
railroad,  which  have  yielded,  and  now  yield  annually,  a  large  income  on  the  then 
value  of  the  lands  granted,  which  had  been  one  dollar  and  a  quarter  per  acre. 

Mississippi  and  Alabama  turned  the  lands  granted  to  them  over  to  a  railroad 
company  of  their  creation,  absolutely  and  without  reservation.  But  Illinois  then, 
as  ever,  wisely  mindful  of  her  own  interest,  reserved  to  herself,  for  all  time,  seven 
per  cent,  of  the  gross  receipts  of  her  railroad  in  lieu  of  taxes.  Some  twenty  years 
later  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1870  clinched  the  matter  by  writing  into 
the  organic  law  the  following  separate  section : 

"  ILLINOIS  CENTRAL  RAILROAD.  No  contract,  obligation  or  liability  whatever, 
of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  to  pay  any  money  into  the  State  treas- 
ury, nor  any  lien  of  the  State  upon,  or  right  to  tax  property  of  said  company  in 
accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  charter  of  said  company,  approved  February 
zoth,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1851,  shall  ever  be  released,  suspended,  modified, 
altered,  remitted,  or  in  any  manner  diminished  or  impaired  by  legislative  or  other 
authority ;  and  all  moneys  derived  from  said  company,  after  the  payment  of  the 
State  debt,  shall  be  appropriated  and  set  apart  for  the  payment  of  the  ordinary 
expenses  of  the  State  government,  and  for  no  other  purposes  whatever." 

The  State  was  still  burdened  with  a  large  debt,  and  well  might  it  so  safe- 
guard this  source  of  revenue.  From  it  there  has  already  been  received  $18,802,- 
971,  of  which  $784,093  were  paid  last  year.  Capitalized  at  the  average  rate 
borne  by  all  the  bonds  of  the  Railroad  Company  now  outstanding,  3.735  per  cent, 
per  annum,  this  last  payment  gives  $20,993,119  as  the  present  value  of  the  State's 


proprietary  interest  in  the  railroad.  The  annual  income  therefrom  has  more 
than  doubled  in  the  past  fourteen  years.  It  increased  last  year  by  more  than 
one-eighth  (12.65  per  cent.). 

The  City  of  Chicago  pays  rather  more  than  one-third  (in  1900,  34  i-io  per 
cent.)  of  the  total  State  tax.  The  direct  money  interest  of  this  City  in  the  rail- 
road is,  therefore,  obvious.  Valuable  as  are  the  Company's  lands  and  buildings 
in  Chicago,  which  of  its  neighbors  and  competitors,  may  I  ask,  contributes  yearly 
so  much  as  $267,376  in  taxes  in  Chicago?  Which  of  them  is  taxed  in  like  ratio 
to  its  gross  receipts  throughout  the  State? 

Let  us  now  look  back  fifty  years,  to  the  date  of  the  charter,  and  endeavor  to 
realize  the  problem  which  confronted  the  twelve  citizens  of  New  York  and  Mas- 
sachusetts who,  with  the  Governor  of  Illinois  for  the  time  being,  ex-officio,  were 
named  therein  as  Directors,  and  in  whom,  as  a  Board,  the  Act  to  Incorporate  the 
railroad  company  forever  vested  all  the  powers  of  the  corporation. 

They  undertook  to  build,  through  a  trackless  wilderness,  utterly  destitute  of 
men  and  of  material,  706  miles  of  railroad,  and  thereafter  to  maintain  and  operate 
it,  at  a  time  when  no  single  company  anywhere  operated  so  long  a  line. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1850  there  were,  in  the  world,  but  23,555  miles  of 
railway,  all  told.  Even  then  the  United  States  led  all  other  countries,  with  9,021 
miles.  Great  Britain  came  next,  with  6,620.  Germany  and  France  followed, 
with  3,640  and  1,890  miles  respectively.  Austria  had  960  miles,  and  no  other 
country  had  so  many  miles  of  railroad  as  they  undertook  to  build  in  Illinois. 

The  capital  then  invested  in  railways  throughout  the  world  was  $2,325,000,000, 
and  that  in  the  United  States  $300,000,000.  The  cost  in  this  country  then 
averaged  about  $33,000  per  mile.  Our  predecessors,  therefore,  undertook  a  work 
which  might  fairly  have  been  expected  to  cost  $23,298,000.  They  estimated  its 
cost  at  $17,000,000,  but  were  woefully  wrong.  Within  ten  years,  and  it  took' that 
long  to  really  build  and  equip  the  road,  they  spent  $27,125,391  on  construction 
account,  and  paid  out  for  interest  $4,996,214  over  and  above  the  net  earnings, 
thus  making  the  cost  to  that  date  $32,121,605. 

In  1850  the  national  debt  of  the  United  States  was  larger  than  it  had  been 
at  any  time  within  a  generation,  $63,452,774,  and  the  true  value  of  all  the  prop- 
erty, real  and  personal,  in  Illinois,  was  $156,265,006. 

What  would  we  now  think  of  undertaking  a  work  costing  one-half  of  the 
national  debt,  or  one-fifth  of  the  true,  not  the  assessed,  value  of  all  the  property 
in  Illinois? 

In  this  country,  as  in  others,  there  was,  in  1851,  no  such  thing  as  a  railroad 
700  miles  in  length  operated  by  a  single  company. 

The  New  York  Central  &  Hudson  River  Railroad  Company  did  not  come 
into  being  until  1869.  The  Hudson  River  Railroad  was  not  opened  for  traffic 


from  New  York  to  East  Albany,  140  miles,  until  October,  1851,  while  the  300 
miles  of  line  from  Albany  to  Buffalo,  which  afterward  became  the  New  York 
Central  Railroad,  were  then  operated  by  half  a  dozen  small,  disassociated  cor- 
porations, which  were  not  consolidated  until  1853. 

The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  did  not  cross  the  summit  of  the  Allegheny 
Mountains  until  December,  1852,  and  then  only  by  using  the  State's  Portage 
Railroad  as  a  temporary  makeshift.  On  January  i,  1851,  that  company  had  in 
operation  about  330  miles  of  railway. 

The  Baltimore  &  Ohio,  that  patriarch  of  American  railroads,  had,  in  October, 
1851,  reached  Cumberland,  Md.,  which  is  on  the  Potomac  River,  179  miles  west 
from  Baltimore,  and  was  operating  in  all  217  miles  of  railroad. 

The  Erie  was  the  first  to  stretch  its  iron  bands  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Great  Lakes.  Its  line  from  Piermont,  on  the  Hudson  River,  to  Dunkirk,  on 
Lake  Erie,  was  opened  on  May  14,  1851.  The  Superintendent  of  the  Seventh 
Census  of  the  United  States,  in  a  report  dated  December,  1852,  described  the 
Erie  as  "  the  longest  continuous  line  of  railroad  in  the  world."  He  gave  its 
length  at  469  miles,  although  it  is  but  444  miles  from  Piermont  to  Dunkirk. 

In  1850,  Illinois  rejoiced  at  having  in  miles  of  railroad  within  her  borders. 
Of  her  neighbors,  Wisconsin,  which  had  been  admitted  into  the  Union  in  1847, 
had  20  miles,  Indiana  228,  and  Kentucky  78,  while  in  the  whole  territory  to  the 
west  there  was  nowhere  a  mile  of  railroad.  Iowa  had  been  admitted  as  a  State 
in  1845.  Two-thirds  of  her  area,  an  equal  proportion  of  that  of  Wisconsin  and 
half  of  Michigan  were  still  in  the  hands  of  the  Indians,  who,  with  the  buffalo  and 
a  few  trappers  and  traders,  occupied  the  whole  of  the  country  to  the  west,  except- 
ing a  small  part  of  California  and  the  settlements  made  by  our  good  friends,  the 
Mormons,  in  Utah. 

At  that  time  Chicago  had  a  population  of  29,963.  It  then  ranked  twenty-fifth 
among  the  twenty-eight  cities  in  the  Union  having  a  population  of  25,000  or 
over.  There  are  to-day  159  cities  of  that  size  in  the  country,  and  the  Illinois 
Central  directly  reaches  sixteen  of  them. 

But  six  of  our  cities  then  had  a  population  of  100,000  or  over — New  York, 
Baltimore,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  New  Orleans  and  Cincinnati.  There  are  now 
thirty-eight  such  cities,  of  which  six  are  directly  served  by  the  Illinois  Central — 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,  New  Orleans,  Louisville,  Omaha  and  Memphis. 

Fifty  years  ago  Chicago  had  no  connections  by  rail  with  the  East,  or,  indeed, 
with  anywhere.  Its  sole  railroad  was  the  Chicago  &  Galena  Union,  now  the 
Chicago  &  Northwestern,  which  then  ran  to  Elgin,  43  miles  distant. 

The  effect  of  opening  the  interior  of  the  State  to  settlement  and  cultivation 
by  building  the  railroad  was  immediate,  and  at  that  time  universally  recognized. 
In  1850,  Illinois  ranked  among  the  thirty-one  States  as  eleventh  in  population 


and  seventeenth  in  wealth.  Ten  years  later,  in  1860,  the  State  stood  fourth  alike 
as  to  population  and  wealth.  No  other  has  had  a  like  experience. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  further  on  the  then  known  conditions  of  the  tre- 
mendous problem  which  confronted  Robert  Schuyler,  George  Griswold,  Gouverneur 
Morris,  Jonathan  Sturges,  Thos.  W.  L/udlow,  John  F.  A.  Sanford,  Henry  Grinnell, 
Joseph  W.  Alsop,  and  Leroy  M.  Wiley,  of  New  York,  and  Franklin  Haven, 
Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  and  David  A.  Neal,  of  Boston,  who  were  the  twelve  Directors 
named  in  the  Charter. 

All  of  these  broad-minded,  capable  and  public-spirited  men  have  passed  away ; 
but  there  are  among  us  this  evening  several  of  those  who  were  engaged  in  the 
early  work  of  the  Company,  among  them  our  former  President,  Mr.  W.  K. 
Ackerman,  who  was  and  is  very  familiar  with  the  whole  history  of  the  Company, 
and  from  whom  we  shall  hope  to  hear  somewhat  of  the  unforeseen  difficulties 
which  sprang  up  to  harass  and  delay  the  work. 

Only  two  others  of  our  Presidents  survive,  Mr.  John  N.  A.  Griswold,  of  New 
York,  who  resigned  in  1855,  and  my  immediate  predecessor,  Mr.  James  C.  Clarke, 
of  Mobile.  Both  are  gentlemen  of  mature  years,  and,  however  much  we  may 
regret  it,  we  could  hardly  expect  either  of  them  to  leave  home  for  so  long  a 
journey  at  this  season. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  review  the  history  of  the  railroad  as  a  public  carrier 
for  hire.  Looking  over  its  whole  experience  of  fifty  years,  and  taking  into 
account  all  the  lines  operated  in  this  and  other  States,  we  find  that  the  gross 
receipts  from  operation  have  amounted  to  $501,596,224.  Although  a  large  part 
of  these  receipts  came  from  other  sources  than  the  charges  made  for  transporta- 
tion, as,  for  instance,  the  rent  paid  from  the  very  beginning  by  the  Michigan 
Central  Railroad  Company  for  land  and  the  use  of  tracks  in  Chicago,  other 
rents,  trackage,  telegraph  receipts,  et  cetera,  let  us  see  how  those  receipts  have 
been  disposed  of,  and  what  return  they  have  yielded  upon  the  money  invested. 

Of  the  gross  receipts  there  have  been  paid  as  taxes  $25,793,276;  there  have 
been  disbursed  on  the  railroad  as  expenses  of  operation  $297,415,735,  and  for 
betterments  paid  for  from  current  income,  $13,318,493.  The  sums  thus  put 
back  into  circulation  on  and  near  the  line,  for  taxes,  labor  and  materials,  aggre- 
gate $336,527,504,  or  more  than  two-thirds  (67.09  per  cent.)  of  all  that  the 
railroad  has  taken  in. 

Of  the  remainder,  fixed  charges — interest,  rent  and  the  like — consumed  two- 
thirds,  or  to  be  exact,  $110,497,987. 

And  there  was  left  to  the  proprietors  $54,570,733,  which  is  less  than  one- 
ninth  (10.88  per  cent.)  of  the  total  gross  receipts. 

Without  wearying  you  with  all  the  details,  permit  me  to  say  that  if  this  last 
sum  of  $54,570,733  had  been  received  currently  as  needed,  it  would  not  have 


sufficed  to  pay  a  dividend  of  four  per  cent,  per  annum  from  year  to  year  on  the 
capital  at  the  time  actually  paid  in. 

But  the  receipts  did  not  come  in  regularly  as  needed ;  for  many  years  the 
outgo  in  operating  the  railroad  greatly  exceeded  the  income  therefrom. 

That  the  Company  has  paid  larger  dividends  than  four  per  cent,  is  true,  but 
in  the  earlier  years,  from  1860  to  1870,  that  was  due  to  the  moneys  received 
from  the  sale  of  its  lands,  which  sales  were  made  possible  by  the  construction 
and  continued  operation  of  the  railroad. 

In  recent  years  a  large  part  of  the  dividends  has  come  from  interest  on  invest- 
ments, and  the  Company  still  has  a  steady  though  small  income  from  lands. 

The  point  which  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  that  the  income  derived  from  the 
railroad  as  a  public  carrier  does  not  now  and  has  not  yielded  any  fair  return  on 
the  money  actually  invested  in  the  capital  stock.  To  which  it  should  be  added 
that  far  from  there  being  any  "water"  in  the  capital  of  this  Company,  the 
$60,000,000  at  which  it  stands  and  the  bonded  debt  do  not  together  represent, 
by  many  millions,  the  money  which  has  actually  been  put  into  the  property. 

The  600,000  shares  of  $100  each,  into  which  the  Company's  capital  is  divided, 
stand  registered  in  7,120  different  names. 

The  great  majority  of  the  stockholders,  4,576  in  all,  are  residents  of  the 
United  States,  and  they  own  365,070  shares,  or  more  than  three-fifths  of  the 
whole.  Their  average  holdings  are  less  than  80  shares  apiece. 

Our  British  cousins  have  been  forced  by  war,  increased  taxation  and  the 
high  rates  of  interest  prevailing  abroad,  to  part  with  their  good  dividend-paying 
stocks  to  such  an  extent  that  their  present  holdings  of  our  shares  do  not  equal 
one-half  of  the  amount  now  held  in  the  United  States. 

Among  all  the  stockholders,  at  home  and  abroad,  those  whose  individual 
holdings  are  less  than  500  shares  apiece  own  collectively  more  than  one-half  of 
the  entire  capital,  while  more  than  one-fifth  of  it  is  owned  by  the  5,729  holders 
of  less  than  100  shares  apiece. 

Here  in  Illinois  we  have  900  stockholders,  owning  40,414  shares,  which  at 
present  prices  represents  an  investment  of  over  $5,250,000. 

In  each  of  the  other  twelve  States  in  which  our  trains  run  we  have  some 
stockholders,  ranging  from  194  in  Iowa  and  114  in  Kentucky  to  7  in  Nebraska 
and  5  in  Minnesota. 

Of  those  in  the  service  of  the  Company,  other  than  the  Directors,  657  are 
among  its  proprietors,  and  they  own  2,573  shares. 

This  statement  as  to  the  wide  distribution  and  the  resident  ownership  of  the 
shares  is  commended  to  the  attention  of  those  who  yet  may  be  inclined  to  inveigh 
against  railroad  corporations  as  owned  by  "  multi-millionaires  "  and  "  aliens." 


Although  the  whole  commerce  of  the  Northwest  was  then  carried  by  water, 
the  value  of  all  the  cargoes  floated  ou  Lake  Michigan  throughout  the  year  1850 
was  less  than  $25,000,000. 

There  were  carried,  during  the  year  ended  June  30,  1900,  on  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad  and  the  Yazoo  &  Mississippi  Valley  Railroad,  18,110,322  tons 
of  freight,  for  which  service  those  companies  received  $25,876,084.  A  very  care- 
ful computation  recently  made  in  detail,  on  a  most  conservative  basis,  shows  that 
the  value,  at  the  point  of  shipment,  of  the  various  articles  thus  carried  was 
$920,083,726.  That  is  to  say,  the  carrier's  charge  amounted  to  two  and  eight- 
tenths  (2  8-10)  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  goods  carried. 

A  further  calculation,  made  with  equal  care,  shows  that  the  fact  of  transpor- 
tation, on  our  own  lines  alone,  gave  to  the  several  articles  carried  an  added 
value  of  $226,272,923,  of  which  the  carrier's  charge  consumed  eleven  and  four- 
tenths  (n  4-10)  per  cent.  This  is  far  from  being  "all  that  the  traffic  will  bear." 

These  figures  are  commended  to  the  attention  of  the  gentlemen  in  the  traffic 
department  who  are  with  us  this  evening. 

While  we  are  met  to-night  to  commemorate  the  events  of  fifty  years  ago,  and 
to  bear  homage  to  the  courage  and  public  spirit  of  the  original  incorporators  of 
this  Company,  whose  success  marked  the  beginning  of  the  development  of  our 
western  country  through  liberal  grants  of  public  lands  for  railway  purposes,  I 
must  call  to  your  attention  two  events  which  occurred  a  century  ago,  and  which 
have  exercised  a  determining  influence  upon  the  development  of  railroads  in  this 
and  other  countries. 

It  was  in  1801  that  the  Surrey  Iron  Railway,  the  first  of  its  kind  which  had 
been  sanctioned  by  the  British  Parliament,  was  opened  from  Wandsworth  to 
Croyden,  near  London.  True,  the  road  was  operated  by  horses,  and  it  was  a 
small  affair,  but  it  was  the  first  to  which  special  legislative  sanction  was  given. 

It  was  also  just  a  hundred  years  ago  that  John  Marshall  began  his  long 
service  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States.  But  for  the  rendering,  by  him 
and  his  associates,  in  the  Supreme  Court,  of  decisions  in  the  Dartmouth  College 
case  and  other  kindred  cases  upholding  the  inviolability  of  corporate  charters,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  have  secured  the  capital  needed  for  any  one,  not 
to  say  all,  of  our  early  railroads. 

In  a  long  service  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  meet  many  of  the  early  officers 
of  the  Company,  and  to  know  intimately  all  of  the  former  Presidents  except  the 
first  two.  While  entertaining  for  each  and  all  of  them  a  very  high  personal  and 
official  regard,  and  appreciating  to  the  full  their  labors  and  sacrifices  in  the 
Company's  behalf,  I  cannot  close  without  recalling  to  all  the  older  men  here 
present  the  familiar  name  of  the  late  Mr.  William  H.  Osborn,  which  for  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century  stood  for  that  of  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company. 


Without  previous  experience  in  the  management  of  railways,  Mr.  Osborn 
came  into  the  service  in  1854  as  a  Director  and  as  Vice-President  in  the  great 
crisis  in  the  Company's  history,  while  the  railroad  was  as  yet  but  partly  built 
and  millions  of  capital  were  yet  to  be  raised.  In  1855  he  was  elected  President. 
To  him  more  than  to  any  one  man  there  is  due  alike  the  completion  of  the 
road  and  the  establishment  of  the  Company's  credit  at  home  and  abroad,  on  a 
basis  which  few,  if  any  others,  have  equaled  and  none  have  excelled.  [Pro- 
longed applause.] 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen :  You  made  a  reference  in  your  speech,  a 
very  slight  one,  to  the  men  to  whom  the  great  success  of  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad  Company  is  due,  and  that  is  to  the  rank  and  file,  and  there  was 
no  response  made  to  that.  The  men  that  stand  in  that — hold  that  lever  on 
that  engine,  the  man  that  throws  a  shovelful  of  coal  into  that  engine  every 
two  minutes  as  that  engine  works  over  the  road,  is  the  man  that  is  responsible 
for  the  success  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  to-day.  [Applause.]  The  men 
that  work  on  the  track  are  the  men  that  are  responsible  and  the  men  who 
should  have  the  credit  for  the  success  that  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  has 
had  to-day.  Those  men  are  not  represented  among  the  people  that  are  here 
to-night,  but  there  is  no  representative,  there  is  no  man  connected  with  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  here  to-day,  from  the  smallest  official  up  to  the  very 
top,  but  what  will  give  due  credit  to  the  men  that  are  not  represented  here 
to-day,  but  should  have  due  credit  for  the  success  that  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad  has  had.  It  stands  pre-eminently  at  the  top  of  the  list  of  railroads 
to-day  and  it  has  been  successful  in  every  way,  and  it  is  the  lower  grades  that 
have  brought  success  to  those  superior  grades ;  and  to  those  men,  as  well  as  to 
the  President  and  the  Vice-President  and  the  officers  under  them,  should  be 
given  credit  for  the  success  of  the  Illinois  Central  to-day.  [Applause.] 

MR.  FISH  :  Gentlemen,  I  would  like  to  call  upon  our  Vice-President,  Mr.  John 
C.  Welling,  for  a  few  remarks.  [Applause.] 

IHr.  Welling  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen :  It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  make  a 
speech,  but  I  will  try  to  say  a  few  words. 

I  have  spent  twenty-six  happy,  busy  years  in  the  Illinois  Central  service, 
have  served  under  four  Presidents,  and  have  been  associated  with  some  of  the 
strongest  and  best  men  I  have  ever  known. 

I  am  glad  so  many  of  our  officers  and  employes  are  here.  We  all  rank 
alike  to-night,  and  we  rejoice  together  over  the  Company's  prosperity.  As  some 
indication  that  the  "Old  Reliable"  has  treated  its  employes  well,  I  hold  in  my 


hand  a  list  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-five,  who  had,  on  February  i,  1891,  been 
for  thirty-five  years  or  more,  continuously  in  the  service  of  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad  Company,  or  on  railroads  operated  by  it. 

Number  of  Years  of          Number  of  Years  of          Number  of  Years  of 

Men  Service  Men  Service  Men  Service 

25 35  9 40  10 45 

24 36  8 41  7 46 

16 37  10 42  7 47 

16 38  8 43  4 48 

6 39  13 44  _2 49 

165 

Men  from  each  department  are  represented  on  this  list,  and  a  number  of 
them  are  here  to-night. 

I  have  some  notes  covering  interesting  facts  and  figures,  but  the  ground 
has  been,  or  will  be,  covered  by  others.  I  will,  therefore,  not  take  up  time  which 
belongs  to  the  able  speakers  who  will  follow.  [Applause.] 

MR.  FISH  :  Gentlemen,  permit  me  to  point  out  one  fact  about  the  statement 
just  made  by  Mr.  Welling,  that  as  the  Company  still  lacks  one  day  of  having 
been  incorporated  for  fifty  years,  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  have  served 
continuously  for  that  term,  and  yet  Mr.  Welling  did  show  that  at  least  two  had 
served  for  forty-nine  full  years.  [Laughter.]  With  your  permission  we  would 
like  to  hear  from  Mr.  J.  T.  Harahan,  the  Second  Vice-President.  [Applause.] 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  :  I  certainly  am  very  glad  to  be  here  on  this 
occasion,  and  to  meet  not  only  with  our  friends,  but  also  with  a  large  number 
of  our  men  who  have  helped,  as  Mr.  Heald  has  said,  to  make  the  Illinois  Cen- 
tral what  it  is  to-day.  Mr.  Fish  has  said  that  he  is  not  an  orator.  I  do  not 
think  there  are  very  many  of  us  who  will  agree  with  him  as  to  that.  I  am  not 
an  orator,  but  we  have  several  that  you  will  hear  from  this  evening,  and  I  will 
just  say  a  few  words.  [A  voice,  "Impromptu?"]  It  is  all  written  down  so  that 
I  know  what  I  am  going  to  say. 

The  President  of  this  Company,  Mr.  Fish,  has  given  you  in  a  general  way  a 
brief  history  of  the  Company. 

The  growth  and  achievements  of  the  Illinois  Central  during  the  past  fifty 
years  have  been  so  wonderful  that  it  is  difficult  to  give  a  comprehensive  idea 
of  them  in  the  short  time  I  intend  to  take  up.  The  wisdom  of  the  originators 
of  the  enterprise  was  demonstrated  long  ago,  and  the  possibilities  of  the  Illinois 
Central  in  the  future  are  so  great  that  they  must  cause  even  the  most  pessi- 
mistic to  become  enthusiastic. 


From  a  line  of  706  miles  in  1856,  it  has  grown  to  a  system  of  5,300  miles 
in  1900.  From  38,464,814  passengers  carried  one  mile  in  1859,  the  number  has 
increased  to  305,643,549  in  1900.  From  51,650,364  tons  of  freight  handled  one 
mile  in  1859,  the  tonnage  increased  to  3,425,794,698  in  1900. 

The  first  surveying  party  was  put  in  the  field  May  21,  1851,  and  the  loca- 
tion was  completed  in  the  latter  part  of  December  of  the  same  year.  Grades 
and  alignment  had  been  secured  so  that  four  hundred  and  thirty-two  miles  of 
road  had  grades  of  less  than  twenty  feet  and  only  seven  miles  had  the  maximum 
grade  of  forty-two  feet  per  mile.  Six  hundred  and  thirty  miles  were  on  tangents, 
and  less  than  six  miles  had  curves  of  more  than  three  degrees.  The  main  line 
between  Cairo  and  La  Salle — a  distance  of  three  hundred  and  eight  miles — was 
completed  January  8,  1855.  The  road  from  La  Salle  to  Dunleith — a  distance  of 
one  hundred  and  forty-seven  miles — was  completed  June  n,  1855,  and  opened 
for  business  that  day ;  but  the  entire  line,  consisting  of  seven  hundred  and  five 
miles,  including  what  was  known  as  the  Chicago  branch,  reaching  from  Centralia 
to  Chicago,  was  not  completed  until  September  27,  1856. 

The  line  was  laid  with  iron  rail  of  an  excellent  quality,  weighing  sixty-five 
pounds  to  the  yard.  It  was  brought  in  sailing  vessels  to  New  York  and  then 
sent  by  Erie  Canal  to  Buffalo,  and  thence  by  lake  and  rail  to  Chicago.  I  under- 
stand this  was  the  heaviest  rail  used  in  this  country  in  those  days.  The  present 
standard  steel  rail  of  the  Company  weighs  eighty-five  to  one  hundred  pounds 
per  yard. 

In  1852  the  Company  contracted  with  Rogers,  Ketchum  &  Grosvenor,  loco- 
motive builders,  Paterson,  N.  J.,  for  some  engines,  the  first  of  which  were  received 
in  September,  1852.  From  1852  to  1861  the  Company  received  from  Rogers, 
Ketchum  &  Grosvenor  one  hundred  and  nine  engines,  varying  in.  size  from 
twelve  and  one-half  inch  by  twenty-two  to  sixteen  inch  by  twenty-two  inch 
cylinders,  and  from  twenty  to  thirty-one  tons  in  weight.  All  of  these  were  of 
the  eight-wheel  type.  The  first  lot  of  engines  proved  too  light  for  economical 
use.  Colonel  Mason,  then  General  Superintendent,  soon  discovered  this,  and, 
on  appealing  to  the  Board  of  Directors  for  larger  engines,  he  was  advised  that 
he  could  not  have  heavier  engines,  as  they  would  wear  out  the  rails  too  rapidly. 
They,  however,  afterwards  consented  to  the  purchase  of  heavier  power. 

The  original  engine,  No.  i,  was  built  in  September,  1852.  It  was  an  eight- 
wheel  type,  with  cylinders  thirteen  and  one-third  by  twenty-two  inches,  had  four 
drivers  with  diameter  of  five  feet,  weighed  twenty-six  tons,  and  had  hauling 
capacity  of  eleven  hundred  and  eighty-five  tons  on  a  level  grade.  Our  largest 
engine,  No.  640,  was  built  in  September,  1899,  forty-seven  years  later.  It  is  a 
twelve-wheel  type,  with  cylinders  twenty-three  by  thirty  inches,  eight  drivers 


fifty-six  inches  in  diameter,  weighs  one  hundred  and  eleven  tons,  and  has  a  haul- 
ing capacity  of  eight  thousand  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  tons  on  a  level  grade. 
Our  present  engines  in  passenger  service  have  increased  proportionately,  and 
have  attained  a  speed  of  eighty-four  miles  per  hour. 

The  first  formal  contract  for  cars  was  made  in  May,  1853,  although  a  few 
had  been  delivered  before  on  a  verbal  order  to  the  American  Car  Company, 
whose  works,  located  at  Twenty-seventh  Street,  near  the  lake  shore,  in  Chicago, 
were  afterwards  purchased  by  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  and  were 
used  for  many  years  as  their  principal  car  shops,  both  for  repairs  and  con- 
struction. The  contract  was  for  fifty  eight-wheel  freight  cars  per  month  for  a 
period  of  twelve  months,  commencing  May  i,  1853,  to  be  house  or  box  cars,  and 
flat  or  platform  cars,  the  number  of  each  to  be  designated  by  Colonel  Mason. 
The  trucks  of  these  cars  were  to  have  India-rubber  springs.  This  same  con- 
tract also  covered  the  construction  of  fifty  passenger  cars,  "to  be  equal  in  every 
respect  to  the  very  best  New  England  passenger  cars ;"  also  such  number  of 
baggage  cars,  not  to  exceed  twenty,  as  Colonel  Mason  might  order.  I  think  we 
have  a  great  many  to-day  that  will  outrank  any  I  have  seen  in  New  England 
of  late  years. 

When  the  Company  came  into  possession  of  its  own  car  works  at  Chicago, 
it  was  able  to  supply  most  of  the  cars  needed  for  its  line. 

The  railroad  company  commenced  building  its  own  locomotives  in  Chicago 
at  Weldon  shops,  Fourteenth  Street,  in  1862,  and  the  first  engine  built  was 
known  as  No.  44.  I  think  Mr.  Marvin  Hughitt  will  remember  that. 

MR.  HUGHITT  :      I  remember  it  very  well. 

MR.  HARAHAN:  The  original  shops  at  Weldon  were  frame  buildings  for 
repair  work  and  completed  in  1853.  The  shops  were  enlarged  and  rebuilt"  in 
stone  in  1855,  and  these  were  burned  in  1860  and  rebuilt  with  the  old  walls  and 
abandoned  in  1893,  at  the  time  the  present  Burnside  shops  were  completed.  I 
suppose  when  those  shops  were  built  in  1853  and  rebuilt  in  1855,  they  were 
about  as  fine  shops  as  there  were,  at  least  in  the  Western,  if  not  in  the  Eastern 
States.  The  Burnside  shops  are  located  about  twelve  miles  from  Central 
Station,  on  a  tract  containing  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres.  The  locomotive 
shops  were  erected  in  1892  and  1893,  the  car  shops  in  1895.  There  are 
employed  at  these  shops  2,248  men,  exclusive  of  engineers  and  firemen.  The 
capacity  of  the  works  is  twenty-seven  engines  per  month  for  thorough  and 
general  repairs,  in  addition  to  light  and  running  repairs  to  engines  and  work 
for  other  departments.  The  car  shops  have  a  capacity  for  giving  general 
repairs  and  painting  to  sixty  passenger  cars,  the  construction  of  one  hundred  and 


thirty  new  freight  cars,  and  the  repairing  of  three  thousand  freight  cars  per 
month.  It  is  considered  one  of  the  best  equipped  plants  in  the  United  States. 

In  addition  to  the  shops  at  Burnside,  the  Company  has  ten  smaller  shops 
at  points  where  they  are  most  needed. 

When  the  road  was  completed  in  1856,  the  Company  owned  100  passenger 
cars  and  1,590  freight  cars.  December  31,  1900,  it  owned  801  passenger  cars 
and  41,136  freight  cars. 

The  total  number  of  men  employed  in  the  machinery  department,  including 
engineers  and  firemen,  is  10,051,  which  is  a  greater  number  than  was  employed 
in  all  departments  of  the  railroad  in  1881.  Notwithstanding  this  fact,  the 
Company  cannot  longer  manufacture  new  locomotives,  because  all  of  the  men 
and  tools  are  employed  in  repairing  the  engines  now  owned.  There  are  now  in 
service  on  the  entire  system  1,008  engines. 

A  comparison  of  box  cars  shows  that  those  first  constructed  had  a  capacity 
of  ten  tons,  while  a  great  number  now  in  use  have  a  capacity  of  forty  tons. 
The  original  coal  cars  had  a  capacity  of  ten  tons,  and  the  Company  is  now 
using  a  great  many  coal  cars  of  fifty  tons  capacity. 

To  show  how  early  the  people  commenced  to  call  for  luxury  in  traveling, 
I  will  state  that  in  1858  two  of  the  passenger  cars  were  converted  into  sleeping 
cars,  "  to  be  used  on  night  trains  between  Chicago  and  Cairo."  There  were 
afterwards  constructed  at  the  Company's  car  shops  fifteen  additional  sleeping 
cars,  making  seventeen  in  all;  but  in  1878  the  Company  abandoned  the  plan  of 
running  its  own  sleeping  cars,  and  made  a  contract  with  the  Pullman  Palace 
Car  Company  for  the  conduct  of  the  entire  sleeping  car  business  on  the  road. 
There  are  now  eighty  Pullman  sleeping  cars  in  use  on  the  system. 

I  am  advised  by  the  Pullman  Company  that  the  first  regularly  built  Pullman 
sleeper  was  run  between  Chicago  and  Springfield  on  the  Chicago  and  Alton,  in 
April,  1865,  but  that  old  coaches  remodeled  or  furnished  with  crude  sleeping 
accommodations  had  been  run  as  sleepers  at  various  times  from  1859  to  1863. 
It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  Illinois  Central  was  the  first  road  to  furnish 
sleeping  car  accommodations  for  its  patrons.  This  I  did  not  know  before  I 
commenced  to  look  it  up. 

As  late  as  1863  the  fastest  passenger  train  between  Chicago  and  Cairo — a 
distance  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  miles — made  the  run  in  eighteen  hours 
and  thirty  minutes,  or  twenty  miles  per  hour.  The  fastest  freight  train  made 
the  run  between  the  same  points  in  forty  hours,  or  at  the  rate  of  about  nine 
miles  per  hour.  Our  fastest  passenger  train  is  now  scheduled  between  the 
same  points  in  nine  hours  and  thirty  minutes,  or  at  the  rate  of  about  thirty- 
nine  miles  per  hour,  and  our  fastest  freight  train  is  now  scheduled  between  the 
same  points  in  twenty  hours,  thirty-five  minutes,  or  at  the  rate  of  about  eighteen 


miles  per  hour.  We  have  a  number  of  passenger  trains  scheduled  long  dis- 
tances at  forty-eight  and  one-half  miles  per  hour,  no  allowance  being  made  for 
time  consumed  in  stops,  and  have  freight  trains  scheduled  long  distances  at 
twenty-six  miles  per  hour.  We  have  two  passenger  trains  which  make  the  run 
from  Chicago  to  New  Orleans,  through  Memphis,  nine  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  miles,  with  a  great  many  stops,  in  twenty-five  hours  and  five  minutes. 

So  far  as  our  train  service  is  concerned,  the  most  remarkable  development 
has  been  in  connection  with  our  suburban  service  at  Chicago.  The  first  subur- 
ban train  was  run  out  of  Chicago  on  June  i,  1856,  under  an  arrangement  made 
between  Captain  George  B.  McClellan,  Vice-President,  afterwards  General 
McClellan,  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  Mr.  Paul  Cornell,  of  Hyde  Park. 
It  ran  to  a  point  just  south  of  Hyde  Park,  near  where  the  Company  kept  its 
wood-pile,  the  distance  being  eight  and  one-half  miles  from  the  city. 

Mr.  John  H.  Done,  then  Superintendent,  manifested  great  interest  in  the 
town  of  Hyde  Park,  and  induced  the  Board  of  Directors  to  pass  a  resolution 
authorizing  him  to  construct  a  large  number  of  brick  dwelling  houses  at  Hyde 
Park  for  the  use  of  the  officers  and  employes  of  the  road.  Before  this  plan 
could  be  carried  into  effect,  Mr.  Done  lost  his  life  by  an  accident.  The  man- 
agement of  the  road  was  placed  in  Mr.  Done's  hands  the  early  part  of  1856. 
He  designed  and  partly  carried  into  execution  various  plans  by  which  the  traffic 
derived  from  sources  hitherto  undeveloped  was  to  be  brought  to  the  aid  of  its 
revenues,  when  his  premature  death,  which  occurred  in  July  of  the  same  year, 
deprived  the  Company  of  his  services.  The  total  receipts  from  these  trains  for 
the  year  1857  was  but  $1,089.50;  there  were  but  three  trains  a  day  run  in  each 
direction,  which  number  was  gradually  increased.  Up  to  1864  the  running  of 
these  trains  had  proved  such  a  loss  to  the  Company  that  it  gave  public  notice 
that  they  would  be  discontinued,  but  this  notice  was  afterwards  withdrawn  and 
the  trains  were  continued,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  there  was  any  profit  in 
running  them  for  many  years  after — say  up  to  1875.  Strange  to  say,  there  was 
existing  at  this  time  in  the  minds  of  the  officers  of  the  Company  a  strong 
prejudice  against  the  running  of  these  trains.  In  1879,  or  thereafter,  lighter 
cars,  weighing  about  fourteen  tons  each,  were  introduced.  The  first  ten  of  these 
were  built  at  the  Company's  car  shops  at  Twenty-seventh  Street,  and  a  large 
number  thereafter  were  built  at  the  Pullman  Works.  After  this  time,  the  cars 
being  so  comfortable  and  convenient,  and  the  number  of  trains  increasing,  there 
was  a  very  large  increase  of  population  all  along  the  route,  the  value  of  the 
property  appreciated  immensely,  large  factories  sprang  up  on  the  south  end, 
notably  the  Pullman  Works,  for  which  ground  was  broken  May  26,  1880,  the 
South  Chicago  Rolling  Mills  (now  the  Illinois  Steel  Works  at  South  Chicago), 
and  numerous  others,  and  the  business  became  more  profitable  to  the  Company. 


Two  special  tracks  were  then  put  in  for  the  exclusive  use  of  these  suburban 
trains. 

On  January  i,  1901,  there  were  one  hundred  and  nineteen  suburban  trains 
run  daily  in  each  direction,  employing  two  hundred  and  sixty-three  men.  For 
the  year  ended  June  30,  1900,  10,856,364  passengers  were  carried.  During  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition,  which  remained  open  from  May  i,  1893,  to 
October  31,  1893,  29,538,435  passengers  were  carried  on  the  suburban  trains 
without  the  loss  of  a  single  life. 

At  the  close  of  the  World's  Fair  and  the  discontinuance  of  its  now  cele- 
brated World's  Fair  express  trains,  the  Company  inaugurated  its  express  subur- 
ban service — which  is  distinct  from  the  local  suburban  service — the  two  easterly 
tracks  being  used  for  the  express  service  and  the  two  westerly  tracks  for  the 
local  trains.  The  express  trains  make  the  run  from  Hyde  Park  ( Fifty-third 
Street )  to  Van  Buren  Street — a  distance  of  six  miles — in  nine  minutes,  being 
the  fastest  suburban  service  in  the  world  for  the  distance. 

From  an  examination  of  the  assessed  valuation  in  1899  of  property  in  the 
counties  in  Illinois  traversed  by  the  Illinois  Central  as  compared  with  1850, 
I  find  an  increase  of  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  seventy-one  per  cent.,  the 
total  assessed  valuation  in  1850  being  $34,186,755,  as  against  $572,284,599  in 
1899.  The  assessed  valuation  of  the  counties  in  Illinois  not  touched  by  the 
Illinois  Central  only  increased  three  hundred  and  forty-six  per  cent,  during  the 
same  period.  These  figures  speak  for  themselves.  During  the  same  period 
the  population  of  the  counties  through  which  the  Illinois  Central  runs  increased 
from  241,000  to  2,812,334,  or  one  thousand  and  sixty-four  per  cent. 

In  1875,  the  first  year  in  which  we  have  any  record  of  the  actual  number 
of  persons  in  the  employ  of  the  Company,  there  were  4,510;  in  1890,  13,812; 
and  in  1900,  36,260. 

The  President  and  directors  have  been  very  liberal  in  authorizing  expendi- 
tures for  the  maintenance  and  improvement  of  the  property,  and  the  correctness 
of  their  foresight  has  been  demonstrated  by  the  increased  earning  capacity  of 
the  line. 

The  Company  has  always  been  fortunate  in  having  officers  who  have  taken 
a  deep  interest  in  its  welfare  and  who  have  at  all  times  devoted  their  whole 
energy  and  ability  to  the  promotion  of  its  interests  and  the  comfort  and 
accommodation  of  its  patrons.  Much  of  its  success  has  also  been  due  to  the 
high  character  of  its  employes,  who  have  taken  more  than  usual  interest  in  its 
affairs  and  cordially  co-operated  with  the  officers  and  directors  in  their  efforts  to 
give  good  service  to  its  patrons  and  to  improve  the  property. 


MR.  FISH  :  Gentlemen,  Mr.  Harahan's  reference  to  Mr.  Done  causes  me  to 
revert  to  what  Mr.  Heald  said  a  few  moments  ago.  In  1871  I  was  a  clerk  in  the 
New  York  office.  I  had  come  out  of  college  without  the  slightest  knowledge 
of  bookkeeping,  but  managed  to  learn  the  art  somehow.  One  of  the  first 
entries  that  I  remember  making  was  apropos  of  this  same  Mr.  Done,  the  old 
superintendent  of  the  Company,  who  was  killed  in  1856,  or  rather,  of  the  liqui- 
dation of  his  estate.  I  found  in  1871  that,  for  the  fifteen  years  since  his  death, 
this  Company  had  been  acting  as  trustee  for  his  wife  and  children,  and  I  made 
in  1871  the  entries  turning  over  to  Mrs.  Done  and  her  children  his  property, 
which  the  Company  had  safeguarded  for  all  those  years.  It  is  no  new  thing 
for  this  Company  to  look  after  its  old  men. 

I  would  like  to  call  upon  our  General  Counsel,  Mr.  B.  F.  Ayer,  with  whom 
I  have  been  associated,  lo !  these  many  years.  Mr.  Ayer  and  I  have  long  been 
the  oldest  directors  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  and  have  served 
the  Company  in  that  capacity  ever  since  the  spring  of  1877.  [Applause.] 

Mr.  President:  Personally,  I  would  prefer  to  take  no  part  in  the  speech- 
making.  I  respond  to  your  call,  therefore,  with  some  reluctance.  We  have 
heard  from  the  principal  executive  officers  of  the  railroad  company  a  great 
variety  of  interesting  facts  relating  to  the  growth  and  expansion  of  the 
Illinois  Central  system.  What  I  shall  have  to  say  will  be  of  a  more  general 
character,  and  will  relate  to  topics,  suggested  by  the  marvelous  history  of  rail- 
way development,  with  which  most  railway  officials  are  more  or  less  familiar. 

The  most  striking  thing,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  that  development  is  the 
fact  that  the  whole  railway  system  of  the  world  is  the  growth  substantially 
of  the  last  seventy-five  years.  The  entire  process  of  evolution  has  taken 
place  during  the  lifetime  of  persons  now  living.  The  first  railway  opened  for 
public  use,  for  the  conveyance  of  passengers  and  merchandise,  was  the  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  Railway  in  England.  The  road  was  about  fifty  miles  long  and 
was  completed  in  1829.  An  important  accessory  to  the  roadbed  and  rails  was 
a  locomotive  engine  constructed  or  designed  by  Stephenson  for  hauling  the 
trains.  Experiments  had  been  made  four  or  five  years  earlier,  and  tramways 
of  rude  construction  had  been  long  used  in  the  mineral  districts  of  England 
for  the  conveyance  of  coal  in  wagons,  hauled  for  short  distances  by  animal  power 
upon  wooden  rails,  from  the  mines  to  tide-water;  but  it  was  not  until  the  open- 
ing of  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  Railway,  in  1829,  ^na^  ^e  public  became 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  a  complete  revolution  was  about  to  occur  in  the 
methods  of  inland  transportation. 

Knowledge  of  the  new  invention  soon  reached  the  United  States,  and  as 
early  as  1830  or  1831  three  or  four  short  pieces  of  railroad  had  been  constructed 


here  and  were  in  actual  use — one  from  Baltimore  in  the  direction  of  Washington ; 
a  longer  one  in  South  Carolina,  starting  from  Charleston;  a  third  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  from  Albany  to  Schenectady;  and  a  fourth  in  Massachusetts, 
from  the  Quincy  granite  quarries  to  Boston. 

One  of  the  first  difficulties  encountered  in  the  construction  of  railroads  in 
this  country  was  a  legal  one.  In  England  the  authority  to  construct  and 
operate  a  railway  was  acquired  from  Parliament,  and  the  power  of  Parliament  was 
supreme.  But  here  the  objection  was  raised  that  the  State  Legislature  had  no 
power  to  clothe  a  railroad  company,  which  was  a  private  corporation,  with 
authority  to  take  land  without  the  consent  of  the  owner.  This  was  a  constitu- 
tional objection,  and,  if  sustained,  would  have  been  a  very  serious  obstruction  to 
railroad  enterprises,  and  might  in  some  cases  have  proved  insurmountable.  But 
the  public  demand  for  railroads  was  irresistible ;  and  the  conclusion  was  reached 
by  the  courts  that  although  the  corporation  itself  was  private,  yet  the  railroad 
to  be  built  by  the  corporation  was  intended  for  the  benefit  and  accommodation 
of  the  public.  The  land  required  for  the  railroad  was,  therefore,  required  for 
public  use;  and  all  the  land  owner  could  insist  upon  was  the  payment  of  "due 
compensation." 

In  several  of  the  States,  turnpike  companies  had  been  chartered  by  the  Legis- 
lature long  before  railroads  were  thought  of,  and  power  had  been  conferred 
upon  those  corporations  to  condemn  land  needed  for  the  construction  of  their 
roads.  This  legislation  had  always  been  sustained,  and  there  was  thought  to 
be  no  difference  in  principle  between  the  two  cases.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
case  of  the  turnpike  the  public  made  use  of  the  road  with  their  own  vehicles, 
but  it  was  also  the  understanding  at  first  that  railroads  might  be  used  in  the 
same  way.  In  England  an  act,  passed  as  late  as  1842,  provided  in  detail  for 
such  use,  and  many  of  the  early  charters  granted  to  railroad  companies  in  this 
country  contained  legislative  expressions  embodying  the  same  idea.  The  charter 
of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  granted  in  1851,  contains  rudimentary 
provisions,  if  I  may  so  call  them,  of  the  same  character. 

This  difficulty  having  been  surmounted,  a  question  was  raised  before  long  in 
several  of  the  new  States  as  to  the  power  of  the  Legislature  to  confer  upon 
counties,  cities  and  towns  authority  to  assist  in  the  construction  of  railways  by 
subscribing  for  stock  and  issuing  bonds  to  pay  for  it.  The  power  was  gener- 
ally sustained  by  the  courts  in  States  where  there  was  no  express  constitutional 
inhibition,  and  the  result  was  that  in  the  eager  desire  to  get  the  benefit  of 
railroad  accommodation,  debts  were  incurred  by  municipalities  which  it  was  found 
inconvenient  to  pay,  and  in  some  cases  the  State  courts  reversed  their  previous 
rulings  to  help  the  people  out  of  their  difficulties.  But  the  Federal  courts  did 
not  take  kindly  to  these  decisions,  and  in  most  cases  the  debts  incurred  had  to 
be  paid  or  compromised. 


The  railroad  fever  raged  as  violently  in  Illinois  between  1830  and  1838  as 
in  any  other  part  of  the  country.  In  1835  an<^  I836  twenty  railroad  companies 
were  incorporated  in  this  State,  and  as  many  more  in  1837.  All  but  one  or 
two  of  these  enterprises  were  afterwards  abandoned.  Illinois  was  then  a  new 
State,  with  a  comparatively  small  population  and  inconsiderable  wealth. 

In  1849,  for  the  first  time,  a  general  railroad  incorporation  law  was  passed, 
but  it  conferred  no  power  upon  companies  organized  under  it  to  condemn  land, 
until  the  Legislature  should  determine  that  the  construction  of  the  road  pro- 
posed to  be  built  would  be  of  sufficient  public  utility  to  justify  the  taking  of 
private  property  for  that  purpose  by  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  eminent 
domain.  It  was  not  until  1872  that  the  power  was  conferred  upon  every  rail- 
way company  organized  under  the  general  law  to  condemn  without  restraint 
any  land  needed  for  the  construction  of  the  road  described  in  its  articles. 

In  1850,  as  it  appears,  there  were  only  in  miles  of  completed  railway  in  this 
State,  consisting  of  a  section  of  the  Northern  Cross  Railroad,  as  it  was  called, 
about  58  miles  long,  extending  from  Meridosia  to  Springfield;  a  section  of  the 
Chicago  and  Galena  Union  Railroad,  now  part  of  the  Northwestern  system, 
about  43  miles  long,  extending  from  Chicago  to  Elgin;  and  a  road  from  Aurora 
to  Geneva,  along  Fox  River,  about  10  miles  long. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  land  grant  was  made  by  Congress  to  the  State 
of  Illinois,  in  aid  of  the  construction  of  the  Illinois  Central  road.  The  road 
was  to  be  705^  miles  long.  The  territory  it  was  to  traverse  was  sparsely 
settled,  and  much  of  it  wholly  unoccupied.  As  stated  by  Mr.  Ackerman,  the 
country  along  the  Chicago  Branch,  so-called,  for  130  miles  south  of  Chicago, 
was  an  almost  unbroken  prairie,  containing  scarcely  any  settlement. 

The  population  of  the  State  in  1850  was  about  850,000,  and  the  inhabitants 
of  Chicago  numbered  not  far  from  28,000.  The  road  was  completed  throughout 
its  entire  length  in  September,  1856,  although  parts  of  the  line  had  been  opened 
for  traffic  two  or  three  years  earlier — the  section  from  Kensington  to  Chicago 
as  early  as  May,  1852,  which  enabled  the  Michigan  Central  trains  to  reach 
Chicago  at  that  time  from  the  East. 

Since  1856  the  Illinois  Central  lines  have  been  greatly  extended.  Numerous 
channels  of  communication  have  been  opened  up  by  it  and  other  railway  corpora- 
tions, to  furnish  the  means  of  commercial  intercourse  between  this  great  city 
and  the  vast  interior  stretching  from  here  to  the  North,  the  South,  and  the  West. 
These  railways  are  the  real  causes  of  our  great  commercial  prosperity.  They 
have  been  of  incalculable  advantage  to  all  the  main  centers  of  trade,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  benefit  and  a  blessing  to  every  part  of  the  country  they  penetrate. 


MR.  FISH  :  We  have  here  to-night  one  of  the  three  former  Presidents  of  the 
Company  who  are  yet  living  among  us,  Mr.  W.  K.  Ackerman.  He  was  con- 
nected with  the  Company  in  its  earliest  days  and  remained  in  its  service  for 
some  thirty-two  years,  and  under  him  I  had  the  pleasure  of  serving  a  good  long 
apprenticeship.  I  would  like  very  much  to  hear  from  Mr.  Ackerman.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

flCkCrttiatl  Mr.  President  and  Fellow-Craftsmen :  If  I  had  known  when  T  accepted  the 
invitation  to  this  sumptuous  banquet  that  I  would  be  called  upon  to  make  the 
proverbial  few  remarks,  I  think  that  I  should  have  become  suddenly  ill,  and 
therefore  obliged  to  decline,  but  the  invitation  came  first  and  the  intimation  as 
to  the  "few  remarks"  came  later. 

Some  years  ago  I  attempted  to  write  an  "  Historical  Sketch  of  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad."  There  were  1,000  copies  of  that  work  printed,  and  after 
being  extensively  advertised  they  were  left  with  my  publisher  for  sale.  After 
several  weeks  had  elapsed,  I  called  upon  him  to  inquire  how  the  work  was 
taking  and  to  ask  him  for  an  account  of  sales,  and  he  told  me  there  had  been 
two  copies  disposed  of.  He  said  that  "  some  fellow  out  in  Iowa,"  who  had 
heard  of  it,  had  written  for  a  copy,  and  that  a  man  "down  in  the  Illinois 
Central  office "  had  come  in  personally  and  bought  and  paid  for  a  copy.  He 
asked  me  if  I  wanted  a  settlement.  I  said,  "  Oh,  no ;  we  will  give  it  another 
chance."  Finding  that  my  work  was  so  thoroughly  unappreciated,  and  deter- 
mined that  the  book  should  be  read,  I  withdrew  the  entire  edition  and  distrib- 
uted them  free  over  the  Illinois  Central  road.  [Laughter.]  Not  many  of  my 
friends  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  it,  and  from  the  great  difficulty  experienced 
in  obtaining  a  copy  of  it  at  this  late  day,  I  fear  that  many  of  those  who 
received  it  mistook  it  for  an  advertisement  of  Illinois  Central  lands,  or  some- 
thing of  that  kind,  and  threw  it  into  the  waste-paper  basket.  It  has  become 
a  rare  work,  though  it  was  never  well  done.  [Laughter.] 

I  might  say  that  I  am  prepared  with  an  impromptu  speech  also,  and 
I  might  also  say  right  here  that  a  good  deal  of  what  has  been  said  here 
to-night  was  taken  from  my  speech,  so  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  me  to 
repeat  it. 

Notwithstanding  all  my  difficulty  in  getting  off  that  historical  sketch,  I,  noth- 
ing daunted,  was  determined  to  write  a  second  edition,  and  wishing  to  enrich 
it  with  biographical  references,  I  wrote  to  the  President  in  New  York  and  asked 
him  to  send  me  his  biography.  Did  he  send  it?  He  did  not,  but  wrote  in 
reply  as  follows :  "  I  would  prefer  to  have  you  wait  and  write  my  obituary." 
[Laughter.]  I  hope  that  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  do  that  very  soon,  but  if 


it  should  be,  and  that  sad  duty  should  devolve  upon  me,  I  promise  him  now  to 
give  him  a  first-class  notice. 

In  the  work  to  which  I  have  alluded  I  told  of  the  incorporators  and  early 
directors  of  this  Company,  of  the  trials  that  they  encountered,  and  how  nobly 
they  fulfilled  their  task,  and  how  others  were  benefited  by  their  labors.  I  will 
not  attempt  to  repeat  it  now. 

Now,  if  such  a  labored  effort  as  I  have  referred  to  was  so  thoroughly  unap- 
preciated, I  ask  myself,  What  is  there  I  can  say  to-night  that  will  interest 
these  gentlemen  with  full  stomachs  ?  And  yet,  regarding  a  work,  "  the  whole 
of  which  I  saw,  a  part  of  which  I  was,"  I  may  be  permitted  to  briefly  refer  to 
that  Company  whose  fiftieth  anniversary  we  are  here  to-night  to  celebrate. 

A  critic  has  said  that  "  a  typewritten  speech  is  fatal  to  oratory."  I  will  add 
that  oratory  is  fatal  to  good  railroad  management,  for  the  railroad  manager 
who  talks  too  much,  even  at  the  dinner-table,  is  apt  to  lose  valuable  time,  and 
some  I  know  of  have  lost  their  jobs  by  indulging  in  this  kind  of  amusement. 

I  have  been  very  much  interested  in  listening  to  the  able  address  of  the 
Vice-President,  which  contains  valuable  statistics.  I  do  not  know  exactly  where 
Mr.  Harahan  obtained  these,  but  I  have  an  indistinct  recollection  of  loaning  my 
manuscript  to  a  certain  gentleman  in  the  Illinois  Central  office,  and  I  think  I 
recognize  some  of  the  statements  made. 

It  is  very  amusing  to  look  back  over  the  history  of  the  State  of  Illinois  and 
to  read  the  account  of  the  first  attempts  at  railroad  building.  I  pass  by  the 
various  efforts  made  between  the  years  1831  and  1835,  all  of  which  came  to 
nought. 

On  the  1 6th  of  January,  1836,  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  sitting 
in  the  old  State  House  at  Vandalia,  passed  an  act  incorporating  ''''The  Illinois 
Central  Railroad  Company."  (Mark  the  definite  article.)  The  act  provided  that 
the  directors  should  have  power  to  fix  the  rates  of  transportation,  but  if  the 
road  should,  after  completion,  be  able  to  pay  12  per  cent,  dividends,  these  rates 
might  be  reduced  by  the  Legislature.  It  provided,  also,  that  no  other  railroad 
should  be  built  within  ten  miles  of  this  Central  Railroad  for  fifty  years.  This 
was  a  very  wise  provision,  and  should  have  been  carried  out  in  later  legislation. 
The  road  was  to  be  commenced  in  five  years  and  completed  within  twenty 
years.  The  State  reserved  the  right  to  purchase  the  road  after  twenty-five 
years,  by  paying  to  the  directors  the  amount  expended  in  making  the  road, 
and  if  it  had  not  earned  12  per  cent.,  the  State  was  to  make  this  up  in  settling 
with  the  Company,  so  that  the  shareholders  were  practically  guaranteed  12  per 
cent,  dividends  on  their  investment.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  this  option  was 
never  exercised  by  the  State,  for  no  work  was  ever  done  upon  the  road. 


Then  in  1838  the  State,  under  its  famous  Internal  Improvement  Act,  passed 
the  year  before,  attempted  to  build  457  miles  of  a  Central  road,  and  appropriated 
$3,500,000  for  this  purpose.  The  engineer  appointed  to  oversee  the  work  gave 
it  as  his  solemn  opinion  in  his  preliminary  report  to  the  Fund  Commissioners, 
that  the  plan  of  making  an  embankment  on  which  to  place  the  ties  and  rails 
was  entirely  unnecessary — in  fact,  a  sheer  waste  of  money,  and  that  he  could 
save  that  expense  by  building  the  road  flat  on  the  prairies.  He  thought  that 
rails  weighing  twenty-two  pounds  to  the  yard  would  be  about  right.  The  State 
spent  $506,000,  and  then  becoming  tired  and  its  money  giving  out,  stopped 
the  work. 

In  1843  a  new  private  corporation,  known  as  the  Great  Western  Railroad, 
procured  a  charter  and  took  up  the  work,  but,  becoming  discouraged,  surrendered 
its  charter. 

In  1849,  when  this  latter  company  learned  that  there  was  to  be  a  land  grant 
made  to  any  company  that  would  build  the  road,  they  obtained  a  renewal  of 
their  charter,  known  as  the  Holbrook  charter,  which  two  years  later  was  surren- 
dered to  the  State  for  a  consideration,  in  order  to  leave  the  field  clear  for  the 
present  Company. 

Here,  then,  we  see  that  four  different  attempts  had  been  made  to  build  a 
Central  Railroad  when  the  present  corporation  took  hold. 

History  repeats  itself,  and  the  comic  history  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad 
continued. 

Uncle  Sam  had  several  millions  of  acres  of  wild  lands  lying  idle  in  Illinois, 
and  he  said  to  the  State  of  Illinois,  "I  will  donate  you  2,500,000  acres  of  these, 
which  you  can  in  turn  give  to  any  corporation  that  will  be  willing  and  foolish 
enough  to  build  you  a  railroad."  After  he  had  disposed  of  this  "  generous  gift," 
he  immediately  doubled  the  price  of  his  remaining  lands,  sold  them  out,  went 
\  out  of  business  in  the  State,  and  moved  west  to  repeat  the  operation. 

In  1851  several  influential  and  benevolent  old  gentlemen  living  in  Boston 
and  New  York,  who  were  wholly  unacquainted  with  western  ways,  heard  this 
little  trick  of  Uncle  Sam's  spoken  of  as  a  "  magnificent  gift."  They  sent  Mr. 
James  Rantoul,  Jr.,  to  the  farmer  Legislature  of  Illinois,  then  sitting  at  Spring- 
field, with  a  memorial  for  a  charter.  Judging  impartially,  and  by  the  light  of 
what  followed,  I  think  he  bought  a  gold  brick,  but  this  was  not  discovered  until 
it  was  too  late.  The  good  farmers  went  to  their  homes  elated,  and  the  incorpo- 
rators  sat  down  to  figure  up  their  profits. 

Their  estimates,  both  as  to  the  cost  of  the  work  and  the  probable  receipts 
from  its  operation,  proved  no  less  deceptive  than  were  those  of  their  predeces- 
sors. They  intended  to  pay  cash  for  everything,  and  their  cash  gave  out. 


They  calculated  that  the  road  could  be  built  in  three  years  ;  it  took  five 
years  to  build  it. 

They  estimated  that  the  cost  of  the  road  would  be  fifteen  million  dollars  ; 
it  has  cost  nearer  fifty  million  dollars. 

They  purchased  engines  weighing  fifty-seven  thousand  pounds  ;  they  are  now 
building  them  weighing  two  hundred  and  twenty-one  thousand  pounds. 

They  provided  cars  carrying  ten  tons  ;  to-day  they  have  them  with  a  capacity 
of  forty  and  even  fifty  tons. 

They  thought  that  when  the  road  was  fully  completed  and  open  for  business 
that  1,690  cars  and  90  engines  would  supply  the  necessary  complement  of  rolling 
stock.  The  Company  employs  at  this  time  41,937  cars  and  1,008  engines. 

They  anticipated  a  rapid  sale  and  speedy  settlement  of  the  lands  ;  disap- 
pointed in  this,  they  were  also  disappointed  in  the  revenue  of  the  road. 

The  productive  capacity  of  the  lands  was  not  overestimated,  but  the  producers 
did  not  arrive  on  time.  The  good  reputation  of  the  State  as  a  debt  creator  and 
its  bad  reputation  as  a  debt  payer  had  a  paralyzing  influence  outside  of  the 
State,  and  deterred  many  from  settling  within  her  borders. 

They  calculated  that  the  settlers  would  use  coal,  and  they  burned  corn  for 
fuel.  The  region  that  was  to  be  "  dotted  with  flourishing  farms  and  covered 
with,  an  enterprising  and  industrious  population,"  was  too  long  held  by  an 
enterprising  population  of  prairie  wolves,  who  worked  by  day  and  howled  a 
protest  against  any  other  settlements  by  night. 

Before  six  years  had  elapsed,  but  after  they  had  completed  their  task,  they 
discovered  that  they  had  been  buncoed  (  I  use  a  Western  term  in  describing 
Western  events  )  ,  and  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  assignees.  They  detected 
too  late  "  errors  of  fact  and  errors  of  imagination." 

Men  of  less  courage  and  less  conscience  would  have  given  up  the  enterprise 
at  this  juncture,  but  they  got  their  property  back  again  by  putting  in  more 
money,  and  they  or  their  successors  have  been  putting  in  more  money  ever 
since;  but  no  money  invested  in  the  enterprise  since  has  been  without  a  com- 
pensating feature. 

Who  has  been  benefited  ?  Certainly  not  the  shareholders,  for  they  could  have 
invested  their  money  at  double  the  rates  they  have  received.  The  reply  is 
found  in  part  in  a  comparison  of  the  conditions  existing  in  1851  with  those  of 
1901  : 

The  State  debt  of  $16,627,509.91  has  been  wiped  out. 

The  population  of  850,000  in  1851  increased  to  4,821,550  in  1900. 

The  assessed  value    of    property   increased    from   $106,000,000   in    1851    to 


The  miles  of  railroad  increased  from  in  miles  in  1851  to  10,989   miles   at 
the  end  of  1900. 


And  the  incorporators  of  the  railroad  and  their  successors,  through  the 
application  of  commercial  integrity,  good  business  judgment  in  adversity, 
indomitable  energy  and  perseverance  under  difficulties,  and  above  all,  in  acknowl- 
edging fully  their  obligations  to  the  State  of  Illinois,  have  "  delivered  the  mes- 
sage to  Garcia,"  and  that  message  reads 

BEHOLD   YOUR   ILLINOIS  CENTRAL   RAILROAD! 

and   voices   ( of  the   farmer   legislators )    from  the  grave  seem  to  respond,  "We 
did  not  believe  that  you  could  do  it."     [  Applause.] 

MR.  FISH  :  Gentlemen,  I  apologize  to  you  for  the  length  of  my  own  speech, 
and  for  the  time  that  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  has  taken  up,  and  I  know 
it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  you  to  hear  from  some  one,  who,  though  connected  in 
a  high,  honorable  and  important  position  with  the  Company  many  years  ago, 
is  no  longer,  and  has  not  been  for  many  years,  connected  with  the  Company, 
but  represents  the  "  Pioneer "  Company,  which  ran  an  engine  of  that  name  out 
of  this  city  when  it  was  the  only  locomotive  in  Chicago.  I  would  like  to  call 
upon  Mr.  Marvin  Hughitt,  the  President  of  the  Chicago  and  North- Western 
Railway  Company. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen :  I  am  sure,  Mr.  President,  that  you  will 
bear  me  witness  that  I  did  not  expect  to  be  called  upon  to  speak  here  to-night. 
Having  no  impromptu  speech  in  my  pocket,  and  bearing  in  mind  that  Mr. 
Ackerman  has  said  that  oratory  is  not  a  proper  endowment  or  acquirement  of 
a  railway  executive,  I  am  very  reluctant  even  to  attempt  to  address  you.  How- 
ever, Mr.  President,  let  me  in  unadorned  language  assure  you  and  the  officers 
and  directors  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  that  I  am  deeply 
impressed  by  the  statements  I  have  heard  here  to-night.  It  is  the  privilege. of 
the  young  to  see  visions,  to  magnify  the  developments  of  the  future,  to  be 
oversanguine ;  yet  I  believe  I  can  truthfully  say  that  not  one  of  us  gathered 
together  here  to-night  could  have  looked  forward  thirty  years  ago  with  any 
confidence  to  the  present  achievements  of  this  Company. 

The  statistics  given  by  Mr.  Harahan  appeal,  I  think,  even  with  greater  force 
to  those  having  technical  knowledge  of  railroad  affairs  than  to  financiers  and 
merchants.  The  carrying  capacity  of  railway  equipment  and  all  the  appoint- 
ments we  call  railway  facilities  have  grown  so  marvelously  in  these  thirty 
years  just  past  that  it  is  difficult  to  grasp  the  full  meaning  of  the  change,  but, 
Mr.  President,  as  an  ex-employe,  I  share  in  the  splendid  success  of  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad  with  you,  with  your  directors,  with  your  investors,  and  with 
your  old  employes. 

I  expected  that  yoiir  President,  Mr.  Fish,  would  mention  the  fact   that   this 


road  was  originally  intended  as  a  line — I  think  it  was  so  stated  in  the  charter 
— extending  from  Dunleith  to  Mobile.  A  line  south  of  the  Ohio  River  was 
thus  a  part  of  the  original  scheme,  but  there  is  no  need  of  dwelling  upon  that, 
for  your  Company  built  the  line  that  has  been  described.  The  value  of  the 
cheap  and  rapid  facilities  of  communication  it  afforded  cannot  easily  be  over- 
estimated. Is  there  a  city  or  an  acre  of  land  in  this  great  commonwealth  that 
has  not  been  benefited  by  this  great  system  of  transportation  ?  But  I  may  say 
that  the  City  of  Chicago,  which  has  profited  most,  has  never  done  anything 
for  this  or  any  other  railway  that  ever  crossed  its  boundaries — it  has  never 
contributed  one  dollar — while  other  cities  have  assumed  heavy  burdens  for  the 
purpose  of  building  up  systems  of  transportation.  I  do  not,  however,  say  this 
by  the  way  of  complaint.  As  Mr.  Ackerman  has  said,  the  National  Govern- 
ment endowed  this  railroad  with  a  land  grant.  But  it  immediately  recovered 
the  value  of  the  lands  it  donated  by  obtaining  double  the  original  price  from 
the  purchasers  of  the  alternate  sections  it  retained.  So  the  Government,  too, 
although  a  liberal  giver,  was  a  gainer  by  its  generosity.  It  did  not  have  long 
to  wait  for  the  return  of  the  bread  it  cast  upon  the  waters. 

Mr.  President,  you  referred  to  the  part  that  this  railroad  played  in  saving 
the  Union.  It  was  not  only  my  duty,  but  also  my  privilege,  to  be  stationed  at 
Centralia,  Illinois,  during  the  war  as  Master  of  Transportation  on  the  112  miles 
of  road  between  that  point  and  Cairo.  It  was  a  thoroughfare  for  the  armies, 
regiments  of  splendid  men  going  south,  funeral  trains  of  our  heroic  dead  going 
north.  The  service  performed  was  constant  and  arduous,  and  when  we  consider 
the  present  equipment  of  transportation  as  compared  with  that  date,  to  which 
Mr.  Harahan  has  already  referred  in  detail,  we  well  may  wonder  how  it  was 
all  accomplished.  In  view  of  the  great  service  rendered  by  this  Company  in 
the  movement  of  troops  and  munitions  of  war,  I  think  you  will  be  astonished 
when  I  tell  you  that  the  right  of  the  Company  to  receive  compensation  for  this 
invaluable  service  was  challenged,  and  only  after  long  and  strenuous  contention 
were  its  claims  recognized,  and  then  only  after  appeal  to  the  great  President, 
whose  name  is  only  to  be  uttered  in  silence — the  immortal  Lincoln. 

The  roster  of  your  Company  contains  many  illustrious  names — may  I  men- 
tion among  them  McClellan,  Banks  and  Burnside.  But  I  am  taking  too  much 
of  your  time,  and  I  shall  no  longer  take  advantage  of  your  forbearance.  Let 
me  say,  however,  before  sitting  down,  that  I  am  happy  to  be  with  you,  and  I 
hope  you  will  not  deny  me,  although  I  have  for  some  time  been  separated  from 
you,  the  supreme  privilege  of  sharing  in  the  joy  of  your  grand  achievements, 
of  your  hard  and  justly  won  triumphs  in  the  field  of  railway  development. 
How  intimately  it  is  united  with  the  very  life  of  the  people  and  the  progress  of 
the  nation,  none  know  better  than  the  rank  and  file  who  constitute  the  work- 
ing force  of  American  Railway  Systems. 


MR.  FISH  :  On  behalf  of  the  Company,  I  want  to  thank  Mr.  Hughitt  for  the 
kind  and  indulgent  words  which  he  has  said,  and  I  know  every  man  in  the 
service  of  the  Company  feels  that  way  towards  Mr.  Hughitt.  [Applause.] 

Having  reached  so  far  west  as  the  star  of  empire  ever  westward  wends  its 
way,  I  would  like  to  now  call  on  my  friend,  Mr.  E.  H.  Harriman,  of  the  Union 
Pacific  and  of  various  other  railroads.  [Applause.] 

n?l*t  barriltliUl  Gentlemen  :  I  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  make  an  extemporaneous  address 

without  careful  preparation,  and  as  I  have  had  so  little  to  do  for  the  past  two 
or  three  weeks  I  have  been  preparing  mine.  [Laughter.] 

As  in  the  case  of  the  other  speakers,  I  shall  have  to  refer  to  my  notes 
[drew  note  from  his  pocket].  About  ten  minutes  before  Mr.  Fish  began  to 
talk,  I  received  the  following  penciled  note  from  him :  "  Won't  you  make  a  few 
remarks  ?  There  are  many  here  who  would  like  to  hear  something  from  you." 

This  is  the  first  written  invitation  to  make  a  speech  which  I  remember  ever 
having  received,  and,  as  it  will  probably  be  the  last  one,  I  intend  to  treasure  it. 

You  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  the  corporation  and  railroad  itself. 
I  should  like  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  officers,  because  I  believe  the  success 
of  the  Company  is  chiefly  due  to  their  intelligent  management.  As  has  been 
stated,  Mr.  Fish  was  made  a  Director  in  1877,  and  it  was  shortly  after  that  I 
became  interested  in  the  Company.  He  was  a  young  man,  and  it  was  my  faith 
in  him  which  led  me  to  become  so  interested  and  I  have  never  regretted  it. 

I  do  not  agree  with  the  statements  of  the  officers  which  would  seem  to  make 
it  appear  that  the  stockholders  had  suffered.  Their  figures  show  the  great 
benefits  which  have  accrued  to  the  State  and  to  the  territory  served  by  the  rail- 
road, and  the  large  amounts  of  money  which  have  been  expended  thereon.  If, 
however,  you  will  take  a  look  at  the  prospectuses  showing  the  financial  standing 
of  the  Illinois  Central,  which  these  same  gentlemen  carefully  prepared  and  sent 
out  at  the  times  when  they  wanted  to  borrow  money  or  sell  securities  in  order 
to  provide  the  means  for  these  important  improvements  and  to  acquire  the 
different  properties,  you  will  read  a  very  different  tale.  I  think  the  stockholders 
have  fared  very  well  and  can  expect  to  fare  better.  I  don't  want  you  gentle- 
men to  dispose  of  your  shares  because  of  what  you  have  heard  here  to-night. 
I  say  keep  them,  they  are  good. 

The  Illinois  Central  of  to-day  is  a  very  different  road  from  what  it  was  when 
Mr.  Fish  became  its  President  in  May,  1887.  Its  grandfathers,  of  whom  you 
have  been  hearing  from  Mr.  Fish  and  who  had  been  caring  for  the  road,  had 
become  first  conservative  and  then  restrictive,  and  apparently  did  not  care  to  do 
anything  more;  but  finally  the  young  men  came  in  and  things  began  to  change. 
The  Company  at  that  time  had  something  less  than  two  thousand  miles  of  road, 


with  twenty-nine  millions  or  thirty-one  millions  of  capital  stock,  I  have  for- 
gotten which.  Since  then  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  money  have 
been  raised  on  an  improved  basis  of  credit,  resting,  to  be  sure,  on  that  estab- 
lished by  the  founders  of  the  Company  as  referred  to  by  Mr.  Fish,  but  this 
result  has  been  achieved  largely  through  his  courage  and  sagacity  and  that  of 
his  subordinate  officers.  There  have  been  added  to  the  lines  since  that  time 
something  like  three  thousand  miles,  and  I  think  less  than  two  hundred  miles 
of  this  is  new  construction ;  they  having  taken  over  existing  properties  tributary 
to  the  main  line.  All  this  shows  that  the  Illinois  Central,  under  its  present 
administration,  has  been  conservative  but  not  restrictive,  and  has  added  vastly  to 
the  value  of  the  property  from  which  the  State  of  Illinois  receives  so  large  an 
income.  Had  it  not  been  for  such  intelligent  action,  this  State  would  have 
probably  been  receiving  less  than  one-half  of  what  it  is  now  getting. 

I  should  like  to  say  a  word  about  the  long-time  bonds  of  the  Company  to 
which  Mr.  Fish  has  referred.  He  did  not  believe  in  the  method  of  making  the 
bonds  run  longer  than  the  succeeding  generation.  The  first  Illinois  Central 
bonds,  issued  since  he  came  into  the  Company,  are  due  in  1951,  and  all  the 
obligations  fall  due  between  that  year  and  1953.  To  most  of  us  fifty  years 
does  not  seem  a  very  long  time  now.  There  may  be  a  child  born  to-night  or 
possibly  to-morrow  upon  whom  may  devolve  the  duty  of  remodeling  the  finances 
of  the  Company.  If  so,  I  can  only  express  the  hope  that  it  will  have  the 
financial  ability  of  our  present  President.  At  the  maturity  of  these  bonds  there 
will  probably  be  one  hundred  and  fifty  million  people  in  this  country.  There- 
fore, I  say  again  that  the  Illinois  Central  stock  will  grow  in  value  as  the  years 
go  on  and  population  increases  in  the  rich  country  served  by  it. 

Now,  gentlemen,  in  closing,  and  as  an  employe  of  the  Illinois  Central  Rail- 
road Company — it  is  the  only  corporation  from  which  I  have  ever  drawn  a 
salary,  and  I  am  happy  to  be  included  as  one  of  its  employes — I  would  ask 
you  to  rise  and  drink  to  the  continued  success  of  the  Illinois  Central  and  to 
the  health  and  prosperity  of  its  President  and  his  subordinate  officers. 

[Mr.  Harriman's  toast  was  drunk  standing  and  greeted  with  applause.] 

MR.  FISH  :  I  want  to  thank  Mr.  Harriman  for  what  he  has  said,  and  no 
man  who  has  been  laboring  with  him  as  I  have  now  for  almost  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  can  fail  to  feel  the  value  of  all  that  he  has  said  about  the  personal 
element;  for  although  we  keep  that  in  the  background,  we  cannot  help  feeling 
it  in  our  hearts  from  day  to  day.  The  measure  of  success  which  has  been 
achieved  by  the  Company  in  the  last  twenty  years,  with  regard  to  its  finances, 
is  due  to  no  man  more  than  to  the  Chairman  of  our  Finance  Committee,  Mr. 
Harriman.  [Applause.]  In  seasons  of  adversity  and  of  trial — and  I  tell  you, 


gentlemen,  that  with  successful  railroad  corporations  as  with  unsuccessful  ones, 
"  life  is  not  all  cakes  and  ale ;" — there  are  times,  and  Mr.  Harriman  and  I  have 
gone  through  a  good  many  of  them,  which  try  and  bring  out  character.  While 
we  would  be  happy  to  have  that  prosperity  which  he  promises,  and  which  I 
believe  is  before  us,  I  yet  hope  that  we  may  have  the  adversity  as  well,  because 
I  am  certain  that  adversity  is  necessary  to  the  development  of  character.  We 
cannot,  in  easy  times,  build  up  strong  men  in  this  railroad  business  or  any 
other.  Without  contests  we  cannot  have  victory  or  the  joy  of  success. 

I  did  not  mean  to  be  led  into  a  speech,  but  some  things  that  Mr.  Harriman 
said,  and  that  he  understands  and  that  I  understand,  appealed  to  me  personally 
very  strongly. 

We  have  heard  so  much  from  railroad  men  this  evening  that  I  would  like 
to  call  upon  one  of  the  merchants  of  Chicago  to  address  us  to-night,  and  if  our 
friend  Mr.  Franklin  MacVeagh  would  say  a  few  words  we  would  all  be  very 
much  obliged.  [Applause.] 

Mr.  Chairman  :  I  am  sorry  that  effort  of  yours  to  get  "  a  rise,"  in  calling 
upon  Mr.  Harriman  and  suggesting  the  West,  did  not  bring  out  any  informa- 
tion about  what  might  be  coming  in  the  way  of  further  railroad  combinations. 

MR.  FISH  :     Didn't  he  speak  about  fifty  years  hence  ? 

MR.  MAcVEAGH:  He  did  not  say  anything  about  those  things  which  are 
revolving  in  his  head,  and  which  might  be  of  some  use  to  these  investors  around 
these  tables.  We  have,  unfortunately,  got  into  the  region  of  the  men  without 
written  speeches.  You  have  exhausted  your  supply,  apparently,  Mr.  Chairman,  of 
those  elaborate  speeches,  and  you  have  now  nothing  better  to  offer  than  the 
impromptu  remarks  of  such  as  myself.  I  haven't  anything,  not  even  a  written 
invitation  from  the  Chairman,  to  warrant  you  in  listening  to  me  a  moment. 
I  cannot  help  wondering  what  those  thirteen  Governors  would  have  done  if  they 
had  been  here.  [  Laughter.]  There  is  about  that,  however,  this.  Of  course,  we 
are  all  very  sorry  that  those  Governors  are  not  here,  but  we  must  be  struck  by 
their  self-denial  [  laughter] ;  and  then  it  is  reassuring  to  anybody  who  has  any 
doubts  about  the  future  of  republican  government  to  see  such  devotion  as 
theirs — that  they  cannot  give  up  one  night  even  to  festivity.  It  is  a  great 
promise  of  the  future  of  our  country. 

I  cannot,  however,  representing  my  merchant  friends  here,  refuse  to  say  a 
word.  It  would  be  a  great  self-denial  to  not  take  the  opportunity  to  say  a  word 
in  acknowledgment  of  the  great  success,  the  great  position  of  the  Illinois  Cen- 
tral Railroad  Company.  It  comes  very  close  to  us  of  Illinois.  It  is  a  part  of 
our  State,  almost  a  part  of  our  politics ;  and  we  have  not  only  every  reason  to 


be  proud  of  it,  but  we  have  every  inclination  to  be  proud.  It  is  the  organi- 
zation which  bears  our  name,  bears  the  name  of  our  State ;  and  it  has  a  record 
and  standing  which,  I  am  happy  to  say,  is  being  shared  by  so  many  of  the 
great  railroad  corporations  now,  that  of  standing  not  simply  for  the  stockholders 
but  for  the  people ;  recognizing  its  duty  and  obligation  to  the  people  whom  it 
serves,  and  then  being  for  its  stockholders  and  not  for  its  officers.  It  is  a  very 
short  time  since  it  was  not  unusual  for  railroad  properties  to  be  managed  quite 
as  much  for  the  officers  as  for  anybody  else  under  the  sun.  This  railroad 
company  is  run  and  managed  first  for  the  people,  first  doing  its  duty  as  a 
public  servant,  and  then  giving  whatever  rewards  there  are  to  the  people  who 
hold  its  shares. 

Of  course,  this  corporation,  like  the  other  corporations  that  Mr.  Hughitt  speaks 
of,  has  received  no  benefits  directly  from  the  municipality  ;  but,  after  all,  there  is  a 
mutuality  between  the  railroads  that  lead  out  of  Chicago  and  lead  into  Chicago  and 
Chicago.  If  the  railroads  have  done  so  much  for  Chicago,  and  they  have  done 
untold  things  for  it,  after  all  they  did  not  come  here  wholly  to  do  us  good. 
[  Laughter.]  They  came  here  because  it  was  a  good  place  to  come  to.  It  was  not 
necessary  for  the  municipality  of  Chicago  to  furnish  money  to  build  these  rail- 
roads ;  and  the  municipalities  of  this  country  which  have  furnished  money  to  build 
railroads  are  the  municipalities  whose  localities  did  not  in  the  first  instance 
irresistibly  invite  the  railroads.  And  yet  I  have  no  doubt  that  all  of  the  railroads 
leading  out  of  Chicago  are  glad  they  are  here,  glad  their  terminals  are  here — and 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  competition  for  the  terminals  here ;  and  any  railroad 
that  is  dissatisfied  with  its  Chicago  terminals  can  apply  to  Mr.  Harriman  and  get 
rid  of  them.  [  Laughter.] 

Now,  this  institution  of  dinners  by  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  and  its 
President  is  a  very  wise  and  healthful  thing,  and  I  wonder  that  they  have  not 
thought  of  it  a  long  time  ago.  We  would  have  given  up  our  Lake  Front  to 
them  a  great  deal  more  cheerfully  if  they  had  given  us  dinners  [laughter],  and 
we  would  not,  in  order  to  hold  onto  the  lake  front  north  of  the  river,  have 
shifted  them  off  to  the  water  front  down  at  New  Orleans.  Although  their  good 
services  and  their  good  qualities  are  unquestioned,  they  do  have  a  voracity  for 
water  fronts.  After  they  had  exhausted  all  of  our  South  Side  water  front,  as 
I  say,  we  were  successful  in  shifting  them  off  onto  the  Ohio  River  at  Cairo 
and  the  Mississippi  at  New  Orleans.  How  much  of  those  two  great  arteries  is 
left,  I  do  not  know.  [  Laughter.] 

Now,  I  would  like  to  say  just  one  word  in  conclusion.  I  would  like  to  make 
an  announcement.  I  am  not  a  director  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Com- 
pany, nor  an  officer,  and  I  have  not  communicated  with  the  officers  or  directors 
on  the  subject,  and  I  do  not  know  that  they  know  exactly  that  they  are  going 


to  do  what  I  am  prepared  to  announce  as  their  settled  policy ;  but  this  fiftieth 
anniversary  is  a  very  marked  occasion  in  the  life  of  this  Company,  and  they 
are  going  to  emphasize  it  and  accent  it.  In  the  first  place,  they  are  going  to 
take  the  west  part  of  Park  Row  here,  buy  it  up  and  tear  down  those  old  build- 
ings ;  and  if  they  are  not  ready  to  elaborate  and  complete  their  great  station 
along  this  property,  why,  they  are  going  to  put  a  nice  fence  around  the  vacant 
land,  put  some  shrubbery  and  flowers  in  it,  and  make  it  a  very  pleasant  and 
agreeable  picture  to  the  eye  of  the  people,  quite  in  harmony  with  the  pretty 
park  north  of  Park  Row.  That  is  one  of  the  things  that  this  great  corporation 
is  going  to  do  to  mark  the  beginning  of  its  second  half-century.  [Laughter.] 
The  other  thing,  which  is  a  good  deal  greater  thing  still,  that  they  are  going 
to  do,  and  in  which  they  are  going  to  be  again  leaders  of  the  railroads  of 
Chicago,  as  they  were  when  they  put  in  their  elevated  tracks,  when  they  put 
in  their  splendid  suburban  system  —  they  are  actually  going  to  set  the  pace  for 
the  railroads  of  this  city  by  some  device  of  their  own,  which  I  do  not  yet 
penetrate,  the  secret  of  which  I  have  not  yet  penetrated,  but  by  some  device  or 
other  of  theirs  they  are  going  to  set  the  example  to  the  railroads  of  this  city 
of  making  no  smoke  whatever.  I  do  not  know  how  I  could  accent  my  remarks 
better  than  leaving  them  exactly  there.  You  may  wonder  how  I  know  so  much 
about  this,  but  that  is  my  secret.  [  Laughter  and  applause.] 

MR.  FISH  :  As  to  what  Mr.  MacVeagh  said  about  the  park,  I  do  not  wonder 
that  the  City  of  Chicago,  having  got  one  park  from  the  Illinois  Central,  wants 
another.  However,  if  the  city  will  furnish  the  land,  we  will  furnish  the  grass. 
[Laughter.]  But  on  the  other  proposition,  about  smoke,  as  Mr.  MacVeagh  said 
finally,  we  will  leave  it  there.  He  did  not  say  where.  If  we  are  never  here- 
after to  make  smoke  in  Chicago,  he  will  have  to  have  the  railroad  at  about. 
Kankakee.  I  don't  know  how  far  the  city  limits  extend  southward,  but  they 
go  down  that  way  somewhere.  If  the  railroad  is  not  to  make  smoke,  it  cannot 
burn  Illinois  coal,  of  which  it  is  by  far  the  largest  consumer  of  any  in  the 
State.  Now,  gentlemen,  if  you  want  to  burn  in  this  city  anthracite  coal,  at 
$7.50  a  ton,  of  course,  go  ahead  and  burn  it.  At  the  rates  of  freight  which  you 
pay  us,  we  cannot  afford  to  do  so.  But  if  you  merchants  of  Chicago  will  pay 
us  sufficient  rates,  we  will  burn  anthracite,  or  we  will  burn  pure  white  African 
diamonds.  It  doesn't  make  a  particle  of  difference  to  us  what  kind  of  carbon 
we  burn.  We  will  burn  any  kind  you  please,  provided  you  give  us  our  price 
for  burning  the  kind  which  you  desire. 

MR.  MACVEAGH  :     I  said  I  did  not  know  how  you  were  going  to  do  it. 
MR.  FISH  :    Oh,  we  will   do   it.     We   are  like   the   courtier  who,  on   being 


bidden  by  the  Queen  of  France  to  do  something,  replied:  "Your  Majesty,  if  it 
is  possible,  it  is  done.     If  it  is  impossible,  I  will  do  it." 

It  is  getting  late  and  well  on  toward  midnight,  and  there  is  one  gentleman 
here  whom  I  promised  solemnly,  as  a  condition  of  his  coming,  that  I  would  not 
call  upon  him ;  and,  therefore,  having  regard  to  the  high  credit  of  the  Company, 
which  has  been  handled  by  my  predecessors  through  this  half-century,  I  am 
going  to  break  that  promise  by  calling  upon  Mr.  George  R.  Peck.  Mr.  Peck 
can  say  some  words,  as  the  General  Counsel  of  the  Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul 
Road,  and  as  having  tramped  all  over  the  Southern  States  on  foot,  from  Atlanta 
to  Washington,  by  way  of  Savannah.  He  can  say  something  about  a  north  and 
south  route,  if  he  will.  [Applause.] 

PCCk  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen :  I  believe  this  is  the  first  instance  in  the 
history  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  where  it  has  deliberately 
violated  its  troth,  its  promise.  [Laughter.]  It  is  something,  however,  to 
acknowledge  it  in  advance. 

MR.  FISH:     The  Company  is  innocent.     I  alone  am  guilty. 

MR.  PECK  :  I  forgive  you  if  the  audience  will  forgive  me,  which  I  fear  they 
will  not.  I  ought  not  to  say  a  word,  and  I  would  not  if  it  would  not  seem  churlish 
on  such  an  occasion  not  to  acknowledge  the  hospitality  of  Mr.  President  Fish, 
and  to  mention  the  great  pleasure  that  I  have  had  to-night  in  being  present. 
I  always  knew  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  was  a  great,  a  very 
great  institution.  I  am  more  than  ever  convinced  of  it  to-night,  when  I  see 
around  this  pleasant  board  this  distinguished  audience.  It  must  be  a  pleasant 
thing  for  you,  Mr.  President,  aside  from  your  official  position,  to  see  here  around 
you  the  representatives  of  all  these  great  railway  companies,  which,  under  the 
Inter-State  Commerce  Act,  are  compelled  to  be  your  rivals  and  competitors 
whether  they  want  to  be  or  not  [laughter] ;  and  their  presence  here  is  an 
acknowledgment  that  in  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  they  have 
found  a  foeman  worthy  of  their  steel  in  more  senses  than  one,  perhaps. 
[  Laughter.] 

Here  is  Mr.  Marvin  Hughitt,  by  common  consent  of  Chicago  railroad  presi- 
dents the  Dean  of  the  faculty,  a  man  looked  up  to  by  all.  Here  are  presidents, 
I  was  going  to  say,  to  burn,  so  many  railroad  presidents  here  [laughter] — 
Mr.  President  McDoel,  Mr.  President  Ben  Thomas,  Mr.  President  Burt,  Mr. 
President  Purdy,  and  other  present  presidents,  too  numerous  to  mention,  but 
whom  I  should  be  glad  to  mention  if  I  could  see  them  all.  I  am  sure,  Mr. 
President —  You  understand — we  all  understand,  whether  you  do  or  not — that 


this  meeting  here  now  is  not  simply  a  response  to  your  invitation,  but  it  is  a 
spontaneous  tribute  to  you,  and  to  the  great  Company  over  which  you  preside. 
[Applause.]  I  forgot,  because  my  eyesight  is  not  so  good  as  it  used  to  be,  to 
mention  in  my  list  of  presidents  a  gentleman  who  should  be  a  president,  and 
will  be,  I  trust,  some  time,  but  is  now  Vice-President  of  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company,  the  right  hand  and  ally  of  every  railroad,  Col.  Robert  C. 
Clowry.  [Applause.]  And  so  we  are  here  enjoying  your  hospitality  and 
enjoying  these  reminiscences  that  we  have  listened  to.  I  could  give  you  some 
if  I  were  not  too  modest,  but  I  will  venture  just  a  word  or  two  about  my  first 
relations  to  the  great  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company. 

Many  years  ago,  how  many  I  do  not  dare  say,  indeed,  I  do  not  know,  but 
it  was  a  good  while  ago,  I  felt  called  upon  to  leave  my  boyhood  home  in 
Wisconsin  to  go  down  to  the  Southern  Confederacy  and  put  down  what  in 
those  days  we  were  pleased  to  term  a  rebellion,  and  it  turned  out  that  it  was, 
quite  a  one.  [Laughter.]  We  went  out,  the  first  time  I  was  ever  out  of  the 
State  of  Wisconsin  after  I  went  there  as  a  boy,  the  first  time  I  had  gone 
twenty  miles  from  my  father's  farm.  I  was  put  into  a  car  in  a  train,  carried 
from  Racine,  where  we  came  to,  to  Freeport,  and  there  we  were  quickly — I 
thought  rather  too  quickly — unloaded  and  put  onto  an  Illinois  Central  train. 

MR.  FISH  :     Box  cars  ? 

MR.  PECK  :  No,  sir,  not  box  cars.  They  were  not  first-class  cars  and  surely 
they  were  not  Pullman  cars.  We  did  not  have  Pullman  cars  in  those  days,  and 
soldiers  did  not  ask  for  them;  but  we  left  Freeport  one  morning  pretty  nearly  a 
thousand  strong — a  good  deal  stronger  than  we  were  when  we  came  back — and  we 
started  for  Cairo  over  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  traveling  on  passes,  of 
course  [  laughter  ] — passes  that  afterwards  came  home  to  the  Illinois  Central 
and,  I  suppose,  will  be  found  in  the  auditor's  department,  or  the  Treasury  in 
Washington,  and  we  went  south  over  the  prairie.  It  was  not,  perhaps,  at  that 
time  the  smoothest  road  that  ever  was  known.  [Laughter.]  It  was  compara- 
tively level  but  it  went  this  way  [indicating],  and  one  of  the  men  in  my 
company  said  to  me,  "  We  are  going  at  least  sixty  miles  an  hour."  I  said, 
"  You  are  mistaken.  You  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about."  He  said, 
"  I  don't  mean  sixty  miles  an  hour  right  straight  ahead.  I  mean  twenty  miles 
straight  ahead  and  forty  miles  up  and  down."  [Laughter.]  That  was  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  of  1861,  but  it  was  a  great  railroad,  and  it  seemed  to 
me,  as  we  were  shooting  south  straight  into  the  eye  of  the  Southern  Confeder- 
acy, that  that  was  the  fastest  train  I  ever  rode  on.  Finally  we  reached  Cairo, 
said  good-bye  to  the  Illinois  Central  for  a  while,  and  the  other  adventures  I  need 
not  mention.  They  were  the  adventures  that  all  soldiers  had  in  those  days. 


Now,  gentlemen,  that  is  a  lesson.  The  Illinois  Central  Railroad  was  one  of 
the  great  factors  of  the  United  States  in  that  great  struggle.  More  than  the 
Appian  Way  was  in  the  time  of  Rome,  the  Illinois  Central  was  the  highway 
over  which  the  armies  of  the  Union  went  in  the  performance  of  their  duty. 
Let  me  give  you  a  little  sequel.  We  were  enemies  in  those  days,  North  and 
South.  We  did  not  like  each  other  at  all.  We  called  each  other  names.  We 
called  them  rebels,  but  I,  for  one,  always  thought  that  it  was  rather  a  good 
thing  for  us  to  remember  that  if  they  were  rebels  they  were  our  rebels,  they 
were  United  States  rebels.  [Applause.] 

Two  years  ago  I  managed  to  get  a  little  vacation  from  the  arduous  duties 
that  every  railroad  lawyer  has  to  perform,  and  has  to  perform  more  than  ever 
now  to  dodge  so  that  we  will  know  just  who  we  are  working  for  [laughter] — but 
two  years  ago  I  managed  to  get  permission  from  my  superiors  to  have  a  little 
respite  for  a  week  or  two,  and  to  take  my  children  south.  But  how  should  I  go 
south  ?  Undoubtedly,  by  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad ;  and  so  I  was  fixed  out 
with  the  necessary  accommodations,  my  children  and  I  got  into  the  car,  and  we 
shot  south  again,  and  I  wish  you  could  understand  the  difference  in  the  feel- 
ings I  had  on  this  latter  trip  from  those  that  I  had  the  first  time  I  went  over 
the  Illinois  Central.  [Laughter.] 

Well,  we  went  down  there,  reached  New  Orleans  in  due  time,  went  to  the 
St.  Charles  Hotel,  and  I  had  hardly  reached  there  before  a  card  came  in  from 
Mr.  Hunter  C.  Leake.  He  is  here  to-night,  I  am  glad  to  say,  and  he  is  going 
to  dine  with  me  to-morrow.  He  came  in  and  said,  "  I  am  the  General  Agent 
of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  in  New  Orleans,  and  I  have  come 
here  to  ask  you  if  there  is  anything  I  can  do  to  make  your  stay  in  New  Orleans 
pleasant."  He  also  said  that  he  had  heard  from  Mr.  Fish,  and  while  we  were 
there  the  courtesies  of  the  Illinois  Central  were  extended  to  us  in  every  possible 
way,  and  not  only  that,  but  from  the  people,  from  the  citizens,  from  the  bar,  the 
lawyers,  and  everybody  I  met,  we  received  the  kindest  treatment,  part  of  this 
same  great  policy  that  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  has  pursued  for 
thirty-five  years  and  more — and  that  is  the  sermon  on  this  text  of  North  and 
South. 

I  have  thought,  and  I  have  said  sometimes,  that  among  all  the  agencies 
that  have  worked  to  bring  North  and  South  together,  there  is  not  one  in  the 
United  States  that  has  been  so  potent  as  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad.  [Ap- 
plause.] My  friend,  Mr.  Harahan,  may  very  well  speak,  as  he  has,  of  figures, 
and  my  friend,  Mr.  Harriman — pretty  near  the  same  name,  but  not  quite — may 
very  well  give  his  figures,  and  the  other  figures  that  have  been  given  here,  and 
the  figures  that  are  published  in  the  financial  papers  and  in  the  daily  papers 
all  along.  They  show  that  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  is  a  business 


corporation,  doing  its  work  for  its  stockholders  and  for  the  public.  But,  beyond 
all  that,  gentlemen,  and  it  seems  to  me  it  is  wise  for  us  to  remember  it,  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  and  all  other  commercial  agencies  which  are 
bringing  the  North  and  South  together,  letting  them  look  into  each  other's  eyes, 
letting  them  understand  each  other,  are  after  all  more  influential  than  all  the 
talk  of  politicians  from  one  year's  end  to  another.  [Applause.] 

And  so,  Mr.  President,  knowing  as  well  as  I  do  how  much  you  have  labored 
to  bring  the  different  States  through  which  your  line  extends,  into  a  more 
harmonious  and  better  understanding  of  each  other,  I  am  glad  to  say  what  I 
have  said  upon  that  subject.  You  have  here  several  gentlemen  from  the  South 
who,  I  suppose,  did  not  always  agree  with  me  on  these  questions.  You  had 
Judge  James  Fentress,  who  was,  until  recently,  the  General  Solicitor  of  your 
Company,  and  also  Mr.  J.  M.  Dickinson,  your  new  General  Solicitor,  both  of 
whom  are  Southern  men.  You  have  pursued  the  wise  policy  of  understanding 
that  a  railroad  which  runs  through  Northern  States  and  Southern  States  is  not 
to  belong  to  any  one  State,  but  to  all  of  them,  and  to  labor,  as  you  have  labored, 
and  as  I  know  you  have,  to  make  them  understand  that  they  are  all  citizens 
of  one  common  country.  [Applause.]  It  is  not  North,  it  is  not  South;  it  is 
the  United  States,  and  Mississippi,  Tennessee  and  Louisiana  are  as  much  parts 
of  this  Union  to-day  as  Illinois,  Wisconsin  and  Iowa,  and  these  other  great 
States  through  which  your  line  extends.  [Applause.] 

And  so  let  me  close  —  I  did  not  intend  to  say  anything  —  let  me  close  by 
proposing  this :  Here's  to  the  New  South ;  here's  to  the  New  North  ;  together 
they  make  a  new  and  more  glorious  Union.  [Applause.] 

MR.  FISH  :  Gentlemen,  it  is  getting  very  late,  and  having  violated  one 
promise  with  such  success,  and  having  brought  out  a  reference  to  our  General 
Solicitor,  I  want  to  tell  you  how  much  I  feel  that  our  former  General  Solicitor, 
Judge  Fentress,  who  had  the  opposite  notions  to  those  that  the  last  speaker 
has  announced  with  regard  to  the  late  unpleasantness,  is  not  with  us  this 
evening  on  account  of  illness.  I  first  met  Judge  Fentress  in  1877.  I  we^ 
remember  one  of  the  things  he  told  me,  as  to  his  experience  in  the  Con- 
federate Army:  Having  gone  into  the  war  as  an  officer,  he  resigned  his 
commission  and  turned  around  the  next  day  and  enlisted  as  a  private,  and 
served  in  that  capacity,  in  order  to  encourage  enlistment.  He  also  told  me 
that  from  the  close  of  the  war  he  instructed  his  family  that  those  things  should 
not  be  discussed  before  the  rising  generation,  from  the  point  of  bitterness  and 
feeling;  they  should  be  treated  as  historical  subjects,  and  I  know  they  have  been 
ever  since  so  treated  by  him  and  his  family.  Now,  as  I  say,  having  violated 
one  promise  successfully,  I  am  going  to  violate  another,  and  will,  therefore, 


call  upon  our  new  General  Solicitor,  Mr.  J.  M.  Dickinson,  who  is  also  from 
Tennessee,  if  he  will  make  a  few  remarks  from  the  other  point  of  view,  which 
is  just  as  dear  to  us,  meaning  thereby  every  man  in  this  room.  [Applause.] 

DiCkitlSOn  Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  :  I  suppose  that  when  a  man  acknowledges 
his  offense,  that  very  fact  ought  to  carry  with  it  a  condonation  of  it.  The 
President  made  me  a  solemn  promise,  but  from  what  I  have  heard  recently 
about  the  gentleman's  agreements  among  the  presidents,  and  the  facility  with 
which  they  have  been  broken,  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  rely  very  much  upon 
the  promises  made  by  the  presidents  of  railroad  companies.  [Laughter.] 

MR.  FISH:     We  are  like  the  popes,  we  absolve   ourselves.     [Laughter.] 

JUDGE  DICKINSON  :  It  has  been  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  be  present  upon 
this  occasion.  I,  unfortunately,  have  not  been  like  those  among  you  who  have 
been  identified  with  the  development  of  this  Company  and  who  have  contrib- 
uted to  its  greatness,  who  have  followed  it  from  its  inception  along  through 
the  growing  years  until  it  has  attained  that  reputation  among  railroad  com- 
panies which  it  now  enjoys.  I  feel  that  I  am  a  mere  appendage  to  a  successful 
operation  which  had  already  been  achieved  before  I  became  identified  with  it. 

As  I  understand,  the  legal  department  of  a  railroad  company  is  a  sort  of  a 
tail  to  the  kite  that  gives  it  direction,  and  I  feel  that  I  am  the  last  appendage 
to  the  tail  of  this  kite  that  has  been  attached  to  it  in  order  to  keep  it  out  of 
trouble.  My  own  connection  with  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  does 
not  date  back  but  a  little  more  than  a  year. 

I  fully  reciprocate  the  sentiments  that  have  been  expressed  by  Mr.  Peck 
to-night,  and  I  can  give,  probably,  no  illustration  that  would  be  more  striking 
of  the  restored  unanimity  of  America's  sons  than  the  action  of  the  Tennessee 
troops  in  the  late  struggle  in  which  the  North  and  the  South  have  become  identi- 
fied. In  the  recent  war  in  the  Philippines,  when  the  Tennessee  troops  had  been 
loaded  upon  the  transport  and  their  eyes  had  been  directed  home  after  arduous 
struggles  and  great  suffering,  word  came  that  a  battle  was  going  on,  and  they 
demanded  that  the  transport  should  be  landed  and  went  ashore  and  took  a  con- 
spicuous part  in  the  battle  which  then  transpired.  [Applause.]  In  the  Spanish- 
American  war  the  South  enthusiastically  responded,  and  what  had  been  the 
Southern  Confederacy  was  represented,  not  merely  by  Generals  Lee  and 
Wheeler,  but  by  the  sons  of  Cheatam,  Hood,  Kirby  Smith  and  thousands  of 
other  Confederate  soldiers. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  have  not,  as  those  who  have  been  previously  invited  to 
address  this  meeting,  come  prepared  with  an  impromptu  speech,  carefully  reduced 


to  typewritten  proportions.  So  I  am  in  the  position  of  the  Methodist  preacher 
who  said  he  would  open  his  month  and  rely  upon  God  to  fill  it.  That  reminds 
me  of  another  preacher,  that  is,  an  old  negro  preacher,  who,  when  he  arose  to 
address  his  congregation,  said :  "  Brethren,  I  will  now  address  you  upon  three 
points.  Under  the  first  point  I  will  discuss  those  things  that  I  know  nothing 
about ;  under  the  second  point  I  will  discuss  those  things  that  you  know  nothing 
about ;  and  under  the  third  point  I  will  discuss  those  things  that  nobody  but 
God  Almighty  knows  anything  about."  [Laughter.] 

Now,  as  to  the  first  point,  and  that  is  those  things  that  I  know  nothing  about. 
Looking  at  my  watch,  gentlemen,  I  am  admonished  that  it  is  twenty  minutes 
past  twelve,  and  if  I  fully  treated  this  subject,  it  would  be  morning  before 
I  exhausted  it;  and  if  I  went  into  this  discussion,  I  would  probably  find  myself 
in  that  irredeemable  position  that  was  described  by  a  distinguished  Tennesseean, 
the  Honorable  Meredith  P.  Gentry,  when  the  great  contest  arose  upon  the  Know- 
Nothing  question,  which  was  so  bitterly  antagonized  by  Andrew  Johnson,  in 
Tennessee,  and  by  Henry  A.  Wise,  in  Virginia.  Meredith  P.  Gentry  and 
Andiow  Johnson  met  in  public  debate  in  Williamson  County,  Tennessee,  and 
Johnson  pressed  the  point  on  the  question  of  Know-Nothingism  mercilessly, 
while  Gentry  undertook  to  lead  the  discussion  upon  questions  of  tariff  and 
matters  of  general  public  interest.  That  night  when  Mr.  Gentry  went  to  his 
home,  Parson  Brownlow,  of  whom  you  gentlemen  probably  have  heard,  went  to 
Gentry's  house  and  disconsolately  discussed  the  situation,  and  after  they  had 
canvassed  it  pro  and  con  in  every  way,  the  time  came  for  retiring,  and  they 
had  family  prayers.  They  got  down  upon  their  knees.  Brownlow  prayed  for 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  and  finally,  after  he  had  prayed  for  the  sailor 
and  the  soldier  and  the  wayfarer,  and  those  in  poverty  and  those  in  distress, 
he  said :  "  Oh,  Lord,  we  pray  Thee  to  enter  into  that  wicked  and  unregenerate 
heart  of  Andrew  Johnson,  and  cleanse  and  purify  it."  Gentry  jumped  up  from 
his  knees  and  said :  "  Brownlow,  for  God's  sake,  stop.  If  that  prayer  is 
answered,  the  plan  of  salvation  will  be  exhausted,  and  all  the  rest  of  us  will 
be  damned."  [Laughter.]  And  if  I  should  undertake,  gentlemen,  to  exploit 
to  you  all  of  the  subjects  of  which  I  am  ignorant,  my  offense  would  be  so  great 
that  if  I  should  be  pardoned  you  would  all  be  in  the  same  deplorable  condition 
that  Mr.  Gentry  put  Mr.  Johnson  in,  and  so  I  had  better  close.  [Applause.] 

MR.  FISH  :  We  have  one  of  the  counsel  of  the  Company  here  from  the 
South,  from  whom  I  would  like  to  hear,  if  you  will  pardon  us  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  that  is  Mr.  Leroy  Percy,  of  Greenville,  if  he  would  be  kind 
enough  to  address  us. 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen :  Mr.  President,  if  corroboratiou  is  needed  of 
Judge  Dickinson's  statement  that  you  violated  a  solemn  agreement  in  calling 
upon  him,  I  can  readily  furnish  it;  but  I  felt  certain  that  if  not  restrained  by 
your  plighted  word,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  you  would  be  deterred  by  the 
principle  of  self-preservation,  for  I  warrant  you  that  while  I  suffer  I  shall  not 
be  without  company,  and  all  shall  be  fellow-sufferers. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  quite  difficult  to  determine  what  to  address  an  audience 
of  this  kind  on ;  we  are  furnished  with  no  subject ;  we  are  not  like  a  minister 
given  a  text  to  be  disregarded,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  surmise  and  conjecture 
where  one  will  "  land."  If  information  on  some  of  the  current  topics  of  the 
day,  such  as  the  independence  of  Cuba,  the  disposition  that  should  be  made  of 
the  Philippine  Islands,  whether  the  Constitution  follows  the  flag  in  dealing 
with  our  Porto  Rican  possessions,  imperialism,  trusts  and  combines,  the  ship 
subsidy  question,  or  even  the  currency  question,  Mr.  Bryan  and  free  silver,  or 
on  any  other  of  those  simple  questions  which  are  prone  to  agitate  and  disturb 
the  minds  of  our  statesmen,  was  desired,  I  could  easily  furnish  it  and  deliver 
an  address  replete  with  valuable  suggestions,  but  those  subjects  we  laymen  care 
to  hear  nothing  on ;  we  need  no  information  on  them ;  we  all  know  how  they 
should  be  solved ;  we  only  need  to  have  the  deciding  vote,  which  none  of  us 
have,  and  the  proper  solution  would  naturally  and  inevitably  result.  Outside 
of  these  simple  things,  I  am  only  a  specialist  on  the  Yazoo-Delta,  from  which 
I  come,  and  I  might  tell  you  something  about  that,  but  the  hour  is  too  late 
and  the  subject  is  too  great ;  there  is  too  much  that  would  be  left  untold ;  the 
possibilities  are  too  illimitable  for  any  discourse  compressed  within  reasonable 
limits  to  give  faint  conception  of  them,  and  I  can  but  feel,  Mr.  President,  in 
looking  around  at  this  audience  and  recalling  the  varied  amount  of  instruction 
that  they  have  had  in  the  very  short  time  that  we  have  been  assembled  here, 
in  thinking  of  the  pleasure  enjoyed  in  meeting  here  and  in  hearing  the  ideas 
expressed  as  they  have  been  expressed  by  the  gentlemen  who  have  been  kind 
enough  to  address  us,  that  for  me  to  take  up  any  part  of  your  time  at  this 
late  hour  of  the  evening  with  desultory  remarks,  would  be  unkind  to  them  and 
unfair  to  myself.  But,  Mr.  President,  at  the  close  of  the  evening  I  cannot  for- 
bear expressing  my  appreciation  and  enjoyment,  and  I  know  that  I  voice  the 
feelings  of  all  of  your  guests,  of  the  royal  entertainment,  the  wit,  good  cheer 
and  good  fellowship  that  you  have  provided  for  us,  and  to  which  you  have  so 
largely  contributed  yourself. 

MR.  FISH:  As  the  Reverend  Dr.  Stires  was  kind  enough  to  say  Grace  for 
us  at  the  beginning,  we  will  now  call  on  him  to  close  with  a  few  words  in  the 
way  of  a  benediction. 


Dr.  StircS  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  :  It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  the  distinc- 
tion of  being  your  chaplain  to-night  should  have  been  given  to  me,  unless  it 
be  for  the  fact  that  I  am  a  sort  of  a  division  superintendent  on  a  railroad  line 
myself;  what  might  be  called  an  elevated  road,  I  presume.  [Laughter.]  But 
perhaps  the  President  of  your  road,  who  has  knowledge  of  many  kinds,  may 
have  discovered  that  the  semi-centennial  of  my  parish  is  almost  coincident  with 
the  semi-centennial  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad ;  for  in  this  city,  in  May, 
1851,  Grace  Church  was  organized,  and  it  will  celebrate  its  semi-centennial  in 
the  coming  May.  I  am,  therefore,  sympathetic  with  semi-centennials,  and  per- 
haps that  is  the  reason  why  this  distinguished  honor  has  been  given  me. 

It  would  not  be  fair  at  this  late  hour  to  say  anything  else,  except  to  extend 
most  hearty  congratulations  to  you  all  upon  what  has  been  achieved,  and  to 
express  a  most  thorough  certainty  in  the  future  increased  usefulness  and 
extensiveness  of  your  great  system.  It  is  past  twelve  o'clock,  and  Sunday  is 
beginning.  You  have  heard,  perhaps,  of  how  a  son-in-law,  who  had  suffered, 
wrote  a  testimonial  to  a  patent  medicine  doctor,  which  read  something  like  this : 
"  Dear  Doctor — I  write  to  you  with  a  grateful  heart.  My  mother-in-law  was  at 
death's  door;  one  bottle  of  your  wonderful  remedy  pulled  her  through."  [Laughter.] 

As  a  clergyman,  as  the  hour  reached  twelve,  I  began  to  get  a  little  nervous, 
and  the  last  few  speeches  have  pulled  us  through  into  Sunday.  Consequently, 
it  would  be  wicked  for  me  to  prolong  this  delightful  evening.  Therefore  I  thank 
you  for  permitting  me  to  close  with  a  most  hearty  congratulation,  and  with  a 
very  sincere  benediction  upon  this  road.  We  seldom  realize  how  much  it  has 
done  to  make  this  city  great,  and  when  at  home,  within  a  hundred  feet  of  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad,  my  wife  bemoans  the  fact  that  our  curtains  have  to 
be  laundered  so  often,  and  rails  against  the  black  smoke  from  the  locomotives, 
and  says,  "  Isn't  it  a  shame  ? ''  I  say,  "  It  is  hard  on  the  curtains,  but  when 
you  get  rid  of  that  great  railroad  on  the  Lake  Front,  and  the  smoke  from  all 
these  factories,  you  simply  get  rid  of  Chicago.  We  would  not  be  here,  if  it 
were  not  for  all  the  things  that  are  represented  by  this  smoke."  Where  there 
is  so  much  smoke  there  is  fire ;  there  is  life ;  there  is  success.  And  so,  if  it  be 
necessary,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is,  we  will  stand  the  smoke  a  while  longer, 
we  will  even  bless  it  for  the  progress  it  represents,  the  achievements  in  which 
such  a  splendid  part  has  been  taken  by  the  men  and  the  railroad  whom  all 
have  been  glad  to  honor  to-night. 


Hfcfcenfca. 

The  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company  at  their 
regular  monthly  meeting,  held  January  i6th,  1900,  unanimously  adopted  the 
following  resolution: 


Resolved,  That  there  shall  be  given,  as  a  souvenir,  to 
every  person  in  the  employ  of  the  Company  during  the  month 
of  February,  1901,  who  shall  have  served  continuously  for 
one  year  or  more,  a  bronze  medal  of  the  design  submitted, 
bearing  on  the  reverse  the  name  of  the  recipient  and  the 
number  of  full  years  in  which  he  shall  have  served  the  Com- 
pany continuously. 


The  design  of  the  medal  is  shown  below : 


OBVERSE 


REVERSE 


These  medals  were  made  by  Messrs.  Tiffany  &  Co.,  of  New  York,  and  dis- 
tributed during  the  months  of  March,  April  and  May,  1901,  as  follows : 

To  Directors 13 

To  General  Officers  and  their  clerks 59 

Law  Department 18 

Treasury  Department 27 

Accounting  Department 190 

Transportation  Department 5)7^2 

Road  Department 3)435 

Machinery  Department 5>6n 

Traffic  Department 324 

Miscellaneous 108 

Total,  15,567 


CENTRAL  STATION,  CHICACTO 


fc.. 


Ground  first  broken  June  4,  1892. 
Opened  to  public  April  17,  1893 


D  ,woiTAT8 


laift  bnuoiO 
IhqA  oildoq  oJ 


Hill       EH!     Ill 


ASH   LIGHT   PHOTOGRAPH 


Taken  on  the  occasion  of  td 
Fiftieth    Anniversary    Dinner 


HIAJIOOTOHl    THOlJ 


to  noiaeoDO  aril  no 

rilsilli'-l 


PROM  THE   PRESS    OP 

ROGERS  AND  SMITH  Co. 
327  -  329  DEARBORN 
STREET   ::  CHICAGO 


vr  -  *  * 


